The Thing That Keeps Most Non-Religious People Away From Church and 3 Ways to Solve It

Recently I ran across a fascinating article titled “Why You Will Most Certainly Fail to Reach Your Secular Friends,” in which the writer made the argument why most non-religious people will stay away from church. For most of us religious folk, our default mode is to view this issue from a religious standpoint, so we would list “sin” or “rebellion against God” as the primary reasons why secular people stay away from church. The beauty of this article is that it addressed the issue from the secular point of view.

The thing that keeps most non-religious people away from church is simply that they couldn’t care less. Rather than open hostility, it’s indifference that keeps many out of church. They’re simply too distracted. The beautiful technology that we love and depend on has created a pandora’s box of distractions that keep our minds from drifting to the eternal. There are too many other fun and fulfilling (at least in the short term) options for people looking for something to do on the weekends. It would probably shock us religious folk to realize just how little non-religious people even think about the issues that are core to us.

So how do you get people to care when they couldn’t care less about God or religion? How can churches begin to make inroads into the rapidly expanding generation of ‘nones’ that don’t identify with any religion? Here are three steps to move in the right direction: