If you’re like many Christians, you have an authentic desire to share your faith with people who don’t yet follow Jesus. I know I do.

One of my deepest longings is that every person would come to know the love and salvation that Jesus extends to them.

Our vision at Connexus, where I serve as lead pastor, is to be a church that unchurched people love to attend – a vision we share with all North Point strategic partner churches.

But unchurched people are changing.

Even since I started ministry 18 years ago, there’s been a big shift in how unchurched people think. Particularly here in Canada, we are a bit of a hybrid between the US and Europe. Canadians are less ‘religious’ than Americans, but less secular than Europeans.

Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman have outlined helpful characteristics of unchurched people in UnChristian and David tackled it again in You Lost Me. I won’t repeat those characteristics here. (Both books are fantastic reads.)

Post-modernism has a deeper toe-hold here than in almost anywhere in American except perhaps the Northwest and New England, where it might be about the same.

Here are characteristics of unchurched people that I’m seeing today.

1. They don’t all have big ‘problems.’ If you’re waiting for unchurched people to show up because their life is falling apart, you might wait a long time. Sure, there are always people in crisis who seek God out. But many are quite content with their lives without God. And some are quite happy and successful. If you only know how to speak into discontent and crisis, you will miss most of your neighbours.

2. They feel less guilty than you think. They don’t feel any more guilty about not being in church on Sunday than you feel guilty about not being in synagogue on Saturdays. How many Saturdays do you feel badly about missing synagogue? That’s how many Sundays they feel badly about missing church.

3. Occasional is regular. When they start coming, they don’t always attend every week. Giving them easy, obvious and strategic steps to get connected is important. Disconnected people generally don’t stick. (I wrote more about the declining frequency of church attendance here.)

4. Most are spiritual. Most unchurched people believe in some kind of God. They’re surprised and offended if you think of them as atheists. As they should be.

5. They are not sure what “Christian” means. So you need to make that clear. You really can’t make any assumptions about what people understand about the Christian faith. Moving forward, clarity is paramount.

6. You can’t call them back to something they never knew. Old school ‘revival’ meant there was something to revive. Now that we are on the 2nd to 5th generation of unchurched people, revival is less helpful to say the least. You can’t call them back to something they never knew.

7. Many have tried church, even a little, but left. We have a good chunk of people who have never ever been to church (60% of our growth is from people who self-identify as not regularly attending church), but a surprising number of people have tried church at some point – as a kid or young adult. Because it wasn’t a good experience, they left. Remember that.

8. Something is generous. Because even giving 10% of your income to anything is radically countercultural, the only paradigm of giving they have is a few dozen or hundred dollars to select charities. I hope every Christian learns to live a life of sacrifice and generosity, but telling them they are ungenerous is a poor way to start the conversation. They are probably already more generous than their friends.

9. They want you to be Christian. They want you to follow Jesus, authentically. Think about it, if you were going to convert to Buddhism, you would want to be an authentic Buddhist, not some watered down version. Andy Stanley is 100% right when he says you don’t alter the content of your services for unchurched people, but you should change the experience.

10. They’re intelligent, so speak to that. Don’t speak down to them. Just make it easy to get on the same page as people who have attended church for years by saying “this passage is near the middle of the bible.” You can be inclusive without being condescending.

11. They hate hypocrisy. Enough said.

12. They love transparency. When you share your weaknesses, everyone (including Christians) resonates.

13. They invite their friends if they like what they’re discovering. They will be your best inviters if they love what you’re doing.

14. Their spiritual growth trajectory varies dramatically. One size does not fit all. You need a flexible on ramp that allows people to hang in the shadows for a while as they make up their mind, and one that allows multiple jumping in points throughout the year.

15. Some want to be anonymous and some don’t. So make your church friendly to both. Also see the previous point. This is huge.

What are you seing? What describes your friends and the people you’re reaching at your church? Let’s grow this list.

It’s been a privilege to lead Connexus Community Church for five years now. We’re a North Point Partner church, which has not only given us a front row seat to what’s happening at North Point, but the chance to implement the ministry model in our own (Canadian) context.

As I’ve noted in this week’s posts about North Point, Andy is one of the most quoted leaders in the church today (here are 21 of his quotes from Drive 2013).

To wrap up this series, I want to look at 5 little talked-about insights I’ve discovered about North Point. Being a partner for 5 years and having been around North Point for 7 years, I think there are some secrets about North Point’s success that aren’t that well known.

Before we get to the list, if you’re a bit cynical about ‘successful’ churches, just watch some North Point baptism stories. Genuine life change is compelling. And if God uses you to transform over 30,000 lives, well, seriously, how can that be a bad thing?

From where I sit, there are at least  five remarkable things about North Point many leaders don’t realize.

1. Healthy systems attract healthy people. I sincerely believe North Point is one of the healthiest organizations I’ve seen. That doesn’t mean there aren’t struggles (just read the beginning of Deep and Wide and you’ll realize Andy and the team have faced struggles as deep or deeper than any of us).  Get behind the scenes and you find leaders who have a deep humility and a commitment to character development, emotional health and spiritual growth. Andy is committed to making North Point a healthy culture. And healthy systems have a way of attracting healthy people. It doesn’t mean their team doesn’t struggle. Their crises are not much different than yours, but they are relentlessly committed to working through them in a spiritually, emotionally and relationally healthy way.

2. Character lubricates the friction of leadership. Andy has written about this, and so many leaders at North Point lives this out. Friction is inevitable in leadership. Get a big church and your problems get even bigger. But character (solid character) lubricates the friction of leadership. When you are selecting team members, don’t compromise on character. You need people committed to getting better personally, not just professionally.

3. Strategy trumps vision. Yes vision matters. And yes vision is everything. But have you noticed, everybody’s got vision? If vision alone was enough, every church would be having huge impact. North Point is tenacious in its’ commitment to finding the best strategy to implement that vision. Strategy might be a a bad word in some leadership circles, but here’s the truth: a bad strategy will kill a great vision. If vision is important, strategy is uber-important. Strategy trumps vision.

4. People’s gifts have a far greater impact when deployed strategically. Most leaders are tempted to allow every volunteer to launch a programe or ministry they happen to be passionate about. So the more people you have, the more ministries you have – not a single one of them strategically aligned to serve the mission or vision of the church. North Point has been dogged in its determination to do a few strategic things well, and to stick to that, no matter how much pressure others put on them. So instead of having a thousand high capacity volunteers running in a thousand directions, you get a thousand high capacity volunteers running in one direction. Which do you think will have a greater impact? Exactly.

5. Great preaching alone isn’t the secret sauce. Most people will tell you that while Andy is renowned for his preaching, he’s even a better leader. I think the hard work Andy has done on staying emotionally and spiritually healthy, the way he has surrounded himself with great leaders (I outline how to do that here), and the relentless focus (and ability to say no) have proven to be some powerful factors in North Point’s effectiveness.

As you have tracked with North Point, what have you noticed?

What are some other principles and insights that can help all of us get better at what God has called us to do?

I was at the Drive 13 Conference this week, North Point Church’s leadership conference in Atlanta.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been in a room with Andy only to think “I wish everyone could hear this.”

So if you missed the Drive Conference or were there but want a summary, here are my 21 top learnings from Drive.  Note that the talks I attended were mostly focused around weekend services (plus one on family ministry).

It’s rather telling that there are 21 insights listed and I actually left the conference a full day early (had to catch a flight). I still got this many take-aways. Wow!

Here are some nuggets I picked up. Andy’s comments are in bold. My take follows in normal font.

On the Weekend Experience

1. We don’t tailor content of our services for unchurched people, but we do tailor the experience. This is such a huge and important distinction. Opening up your service to the unchurched doesn’t mean dumbing it down.

2. Nothing should offend people in your weekend services except the Gospel. Often people get turned away not because of Christ, but because of people’s bad attitudes or strange preferences for certain kinds of music or culture.

3. A parking team is not about ‘parking’ guests, it’s about welcoming them. Even if you don’t have a “parking problem”, your welcome should start when your guests pull into the parking lot. Greet them personally and help them start their experience well.

4. Everyone has an approach to their weekend services. If there is a conflict between your goal and your approach, your approach always wins. Everyone has a template for their weekend services. If your template and approach aren’t getting you to your goal, change it.

5. If you start (a message or event) with common emotions and common experiences, not everybody agrees with your point, but everybody follows you there. Brilliant.

6. People learn best in emotionally charged environments. So engage their emotions early – with a fun opener (Andy referenced the 101st anniversary of the Oreo recently. They gave away a prize of Oreos and milk to an attender – cool). Or let music prepare people’s emotions.

7.  We leverage common experiences and emotions, not belief systems. When you’re reaching unchurched people, don’t start with disagreement (belief), start with agreement (common experiences and emotions) and then get to belief later.

8. The more time you can spend in planning a service or experience, the more personal it becomes. Planning is the friend of the Holy Spirit, not His enemy. Often “I’m relying on God” actually means “I didn’t prepare”.

9. Our goal is not to be creative, but to leverage creativity for the sake of the mission and vision. Bingo.

10. A clean environment communicates that we’re expecting you. I wish this was in the Bible. Then I could preach at people about it. But it’s not. So quoting Andy will do.

11. An orderly environment communicates you know what you’re doing. I wish this was in the Bible too. Clean and orderly communicates so much about you and so much about how you value the people you’re welcoming.

12. People stop attending church because they disengage, not because they disagree. HUGE insight. Very few people walk out your door because of disagreement. Many leave because of disengagement.

13. Attention span is determined by the quality of the presentation. With all the talk about diminishing  attention spans, this is a clear reminder than 5 minutes of boring is 5 minutes too much, and 1 hour of gripping feels like not nearly enough. Pastors, before you use it to justify a 60 minute message, just make sure you’re that gripping.

14. A goal is something you accomplish. A win is something you experience. So true!

15. Creativity works best in the context of predictability. Creativity has constraints, but like obedience to the law, eventually the constraints bring a new kind of freedom.

Other Gems

1. Public loyalty buys you private leverage. Criticize privately, praise publicly. Your boss and colleagues will respect you. Flip it and they’ll fire you or never trust you.

2. Your direction, not intention, determines your destination. This principle came up numerous times. It’s just true. Good intentions amount to little.

3. Evaluate everything you do against your mission. This was from a session I attended led by Diane Grant. Diane is Andy’s Executive Assistant but a super strong leader in her own right. She owns this principles.

4. Great opportunities are a chance for a vision to drift. Again from Diane Grant. Exactly. And an opportunity does not equal an obligation. Stay true to the mission.

5. The loudest critics in the church are people who have become missionally disengaged. Clay Scroggins, a campus pastor at North Point, shared this nugget. So true. Why listen to people who are missionally disengaged give you feedback on your mission?

6. Kids begging their parents to go to church beats parents begging their kids to go to church. Invest in your family ministry environments. Chad Ward, UpStreet director at one of the North Point campuses shared this. So true. Get the kids, and you’ve got the parents.

Hope this helps.

What other learnings from Drive or Andy would you share?

Which is of these challenges you most and what will you do about it?