Episode Details

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Chuck Fenwick, lead pastor at New Haven UMC in Indiana.

How do we build churches that are both reaching new people, and caring for the people who are with us? It’s a universal tension all church leaders face. Listen in as Chuck shares about how to identify your target audience and allow them to influence the decisions you make.

• Create a basis for your target. // When it comes to decision-making at New Haven, sometimes people can have an “us” or “them” mentality where “them” refers to people that the church is trying to reach whereas “us” includes the people already at the church. So the New Haven staff focused on defining who their target audience is by creating a fictional family with names and a backstory. Now when faced with decisions, they ask how that fictional family would react to it. Would it interest them? What impact would it have on them?
• Look at the community around you. // In creating the fictional family, the details about them were chosen based on what the church sees in the broader community around them. The age of the couple—35 years old—was common for those who have walked away from the church, but are considering coming back because of their kids. Identifying this target audience doesn’t mean New Haven doesn’t care about people outside of that age range. But it does mean that every decision made is based on this fictional family because the church wants to gain traction with this age group. It challenged the New Haven congregation about what it meant to really be a Christian; it’s more than just showing up to church.
• Recognize the influence. // The this fictional family the father was responsible for 51% of the decision-making and the wife 49%. Why? Because the husband may come to church with the wife occasionally, but there is a difference when the husband goes of his own volition because he wants to. Many times if the husband decides to go, the rest of the family will too. But often if the wife decides to go to church, the husband may decide he’s too busy, and so she only goes with the kids. Winning the man over is that slightly bigger part of the process.
• Help reach them. // Drawing people to church is one thing, but retaining them is another. One of the things Chuck tries to teach his people is that the people outside of the church’s walls need Jesus, but don’t realize it. That means they need you as a Christian to give them hope. The next generation needs Jesus, but they probably won’t come to you asking for Him because they don’t even realize they need Him. It’s up to each of us to reach out to others and care for them, because the pastor can’t do it all.

You can learn more about New Haven UMC at www.newhavenumc.com.

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