Knowing Our Audience Changes How We Minister
Part Two of The Importance of Audience series
Have you ever walked into a room and thought, “I don’t belong here…” No one says anything, but they don’t need to. You know from the moment you walk in that you’re in the world’s worst episode of Sesame Street’s “One of these things is not like the other.”
I was taking a course in downtown Boston in my first year of seminary. I didn’t know the area, and since it was February, the sun was down by the time I reached my destination in Roxbury. I got off the bus, walked into the Dunkin’ next to the station and immediately realized I wasn’t the typical demographic. As if I were in a sitcom, it felt like everyone in the store turned and looked at me at the same time. The uniformed officer leaning against the wall looked at me in a way that said, “Son, are you lost?”
No one had told me I wasn’t welcome. But being visibly different made me conscious of belonging in a way I rarely had to consider. The reality is that I didn’t know what they were thinking, only that I felt out of place.
A church can say it wants to reach people without being ready for what their presence will require. It can welcome families in principle, then resent the noise of children, the demands on volunteers, or the lack of availability in family schedules.
In the previous article, I argued that knowing whom we serve is part of faithful ministry. Paul adapted his way of life for the sake of the gospel because the people in front of him mattered. For a congregation, that same concern has practical consequences. Knowing our audience changes what we do and what we expect.
Be Honest about the Welcome We Offer
Brené Brown has a simple saying: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” I wonder how often churches make a welcome sound more complete than it really is. We want people to feel wanted. But do we help them understand what they can actually expect here?
One of the struggles of raising a child on the autism spectrum has had less to do with our child than with the responses of others. For years, we’ve participated in sports, primarily baseball. Across ages and levels, coaches have often struggled to know how to work with him or with us.
We’ve sat through entire recreational league games without him playing an inning. We’ve worked hard to teach him to ask questions, be teachable, and take coaching. Over time, he’s caught on to the reality, however. My wife and I have wished someone would simply be honest about whether he would play and/or follow through on what they told him. We can deal with the truth. Just don’t lead us on.
A private Christian school once told us it did not have the resources to support his needs. I still think that lack of provision is a problem. But I have a profound respect for the honesty. It allowed us to make an informed decision rather than discover the limitations after trusting a promise. They could have said they’re ready or able to teach any student who enters their doors. However, they refused to trade their integrity for our money. That took guts.
There is a lesson here for the church. “Everyone is welcome” can ring hollow when a person discovers that our actual practices leave little room for them.
Trust suffers when the welcome we advertise and the welcome we provide don’t match. It’s much harder to see who isn’t like the others when we’re the ones who belong.
Honesty is a beginning. If we lack the ability to support someone well, we should say so and ask what we can learn or change. Perhaps we need training, an accommodation, or help from another congregation. Naming our limits should open a conversation about faithful care, rather than end our responsibility to the person.
A Clear Audience Gives Ministry Focus
If you’ve ever paddled a canoe with someone working in the opposite direction, you know how much energy can produce so little progress. Churches can do something similar. Everyone works hard, but we have different people and different outcomes in mind.
Most congregations have an event that seems to bring everyone together. People show up, the work gets done, and energy rises. There is a defined task with a visible goal. People understand what they are contributing toward.
By contrast, we often assume the audience or reach for a general audience in new or even less supported ministries. The work feels less fulfilling. The momentum seems lacking. Something feels missing.
Perhaps that’s because there are no general people in the world—only particular people.
Knowing whom a ministry serves can bring that kind of clarity to its ongoing work. A ministry for families caring for aging parents, for example, has something concrete to learn about: their schedules, their burdens, their questions, and the support they need. Those relationships can shape decisions about when to meet and how to help them practice faith in daily life.
An event can be well organized and still do little to serve those people. Elders need to ask what the activity contributes to their life in Christ. A clear audience helps us evaluate the ministry by its purpose, rather than by whether we managed to keep it running.
A Clear Audience Helps Us Steward What We Have
Does your congregation have unlimited resources? No, didn’t think so. We all work within limits. It’s part of what it means to be a creature. God is omnipotent; we’re dependent.
We need to ask, “What is a faithful use of the gifts God has given us right now?”
In the parable of the talents, servants receive money to manage while their master is away. The faithful servants put what they receive to work; another buries it (Matthew 25:14–30). The parable concerns faithfulness while awaiting the master’s return. It challenges us to consider how we use what has been entrusted to us.
A congregation’s volunteer hours, skills, and relationships as well as money are all entrusted resources. Knowing both ourselves and the people we serve helps us decide which opportunities to pursue. It also helps us explain why we may need to stop doing something we’ve always done. What’s the intersection of God’s call, our gifts, and their need? We are to be regularly evaluating each leg of this stool to see if they’re all still there. If one seems absent, we need to discern why. Is this work we should release, or is God calling us to develop a gift, seek a partner, or change our priorities?
That decision can involve real loss. A familiar ministry may carry friendships, memories, and years of faithful service. Elders need to listen to those attachments and honor the people involved while asking what faithful service requires now. Listening and honoring can be a real way of “mourning with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15)
For spiritual overseers, budgets and staffing decisions belong in this conversation as well. Trustee functions help us use resources responsibly. An elder emphasis asks how those resources will support people’s growth in Christ and participation in his mission.
Stewardship is more than dollars and cents. Elders have a real responsibility not simply to count but to help shape and direct the congregation’s resources for Kingdom impact.
Knowing People Makes Our Expectations More Honest
Consider the church that wants “young families.” What happens when those families bring noisy children, spill juice on the carpet, miss beloved events, or have little time or money to give? The congregation can become frustrated with the very people it hoped would come.
We may have imagined families who would fill our pews, volunteer for our programs, and support our budget without asking much of us. Their actual presence exposes the difference between wanting people and wanting the benefits we hope they will bring.
Every potential audience has its own particular needs, gifts, and idiosyncrasies. Work schedules, income, education, and experience with church affect participation, but a demographic category cannot tell us everything we need to know. We have to ask, listen, and keep learning.
Congregations also have their particular needs, gifts, and idiosyncrasies, too. A congregation accustomed to tightly planned events may struggle to make room for artistic expression that is participatory, experimental, or less predictable.
If the congregation hasn’t “counted the cost” (Luke 14:28), and discerned calling, resources, and need, the result may cause damage to one or, sadly more likely, both sides.
Beyond the larger questions of connection, some of the most important questions about how to incorporate new people into a congregation live beneath the surface. When does a newcomer get a meaningful voice? Whose customs count as normal? Do people have to become culturally like us before we take their faith seriously?
Jesus’ incarnation should unsettle our expectation that others must cross every distance. The Son of God entered our humanity and humbled himself (Philippians 2:5–8). Christ came to us in our need; his love did not wait for us to become righteous (Romans 5:6–8). Following him calls us to move toward people and bear the cost of loving them.
We should expect the gospel to change all of us.
A newcomer may need to grow, and the established congregation may need to repent of assumptions that make faithful participation unnecessarily difficult. Both can be equally true at the same time. One doesn’t negate the other.
Let What We Learn Change What We Do
So how do we move forward in a meaningful way? The most basic way is to explore that intersection of calling, gifting, and need. That will often tell us a great deal about what’s even possible, and it pushes us towards spiritual discernment. The Holy Spirit should be a real conversation partner.
For example, if you’re exploring serving families, find out what it means to be a family in your community right now. Ask questions. Be curious. Listen. A lot. If you feel called to serve retirees, immigrants, or refugees, begin the same way. Listen to people whose lives you hope your ministry will touch. The root of the word “ministry” means to serve. Discern in community where you sense the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Start with one ministry and name the actual people you hope it will serve. Then have a few conversations with those people before deciding what they need. Ask what daily life is like, what makes participation difficult, and what questions they are asking about faith. What have they told you that you would not have known otherwise?
Bring what you hear back to the other elders. Pray together, consider it in light of Scripture, and ask how God may be calling your congregation to respond. Which gifts and relationships could you put to work? Which of your own habits might need to change?
Choose one barrier you can address. Name who will take responsibility and set a date to review what happens. Then return to the people involved. Has the change helped them participate? What are you learning about their life in Christ? Their answers should help shape the next step.
It doesn’t have to be all-consuming, especially at first. In my prior congregation, a simple change we made to the presence of refugees was to have key parts of our bulletin in both English and Swahili.
It was a small change, but it communicated that who we were had changed to include someone else. They were us, and we were them. Moreover, it was a starting point, not an ending point.
Scripture is clear that God has given gifts to the church for the building of his kingdom. Knowing our audience allows us to employ those gifts with wisdom.
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