“We don’t do church.” The polite but firm statement came in response to an invitation to visit Faith Church. One of our church members was enthusiastically inviting her neighbor to join her some Sunday for worship. She was caught off guard by the unequivocal stance of her friend.

Talk about a conversation stopper. What can you say to someone who simply says, “We don’t do church”?

I often come up with good replies after it’s too late. The next day, when I am mulling over a previous conversation, I will slap my forehead and wish I had thought of my clever reply earlier.

Jesus was always responding to people with thought-provoking comments Even when someone tried to stump him, Jesus displayed both wit and wisdom in replies. And he would always get to the heart of the matter.

Did this neighbor consider going to church to be of little consequence, a nice thing to do but of less importance than making sure the kids have a happy, well-balanced life of school, sports, ballet, music lessons and fun with friends?

Maybe this neighbor had a bad experience in church years ago and wants to protect her children from a repeat. Who can say? But after hearing about that abrupt declaration, I imagined the following as a snappy rejoinder to the neighbor.

“You should come with us to Faith Church some day. Your family would love it.”

“We don’t do church.”

“Oh, really? That’s interesting. (Pause) So, what’s your plan?”

“My plan?”

“Sure: What are you basing your life on?”

No matter how the conversation turns as the neighbor explains her approach to life, you know it will be interesting and important, and has the potential to open up further conversation in the future.

It’s hard to get a handle on numbers, but it is my guess that half of our neighbors don’t “do church.” They don’t oppose what we do; they’re just not interested.

It wasn’t always this way. I have been reading the newsletters from the first several years of Faith Church. In every single issue of the newsletter, Gene Roddy, the founding pastor, would remind the members to invite their neighbors to church.

Evidently it worked. Faith Church grew steadily in the early years because both pastor and members were constantly inviting people to come to church.

I am sure there were those, even in the 1960s, who didn’t “do church,” but belonging to a church seemed important to enough people that a steady stream flowed into Faith Church.

We need lots of conversations with our neighbors today too. And it is perfectly fine to lead off by inviting them to come to church. But we should be prepared to talk about more than church.

For Christians, church is the home base for maintaining their relationship with God and keeping first things first. To us it is also a community of caring, support and friendship. This is our “forever family” and it makes sense for us to promote it to our neighbors.

But we will be more successful in drawing people to “Faith”(Church) if we talk first about “faith.” Even people rushing through life and focusing on temporal things pause now and then to wonder if they’re missing something.

If we can catch them at the right moment, and if we are thinking beyond just getting them inside the doors of the church, we might draw them in the direction of faith in Jesus. In time, they will certainly reconsider whether they might be willing to “do church.”

But a missional church assumes that some of those outside the church need to take more than one interim step before venturing in. And if they are particularly averse to church, or quite indifferent, instead of inviting them to church we may need to find ways to take church to them.

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