My wife and I visited 52 churches in a year. Then we attended a bunch more. Here is what we learned.
Greeting Well or Not at All There are three opportunities for a church to interact with visitors: before, during, and after the service. Some churches failed at each occasion and only a few excelled at all three—though every church should. Pre-Church Greeting First, greeting people before the service is critical, as it’s the first impression […]
Dating Churches or Settling Down Visiting churches seems a lot like dating: both parties are, in theory, on their best behavior and hopeful of a positive outcome. Dating is fun—for a while. There’s variety and excitement for each outing, but eventually an emptiness emerges, and you yearn for more. You seek connection, you want commitment, […]
Wrapping Up Our Year of Visiting Churches Our journey of visiting fifty-two churches is over, though the memories will last forever. With much to consider, this wrap-up pulls together key elements of our adventure. I hope this helps you and your church better interact with and respond to visitors, as well as find new ways […]
Wrapping Up Our Journey of Visiting 52 Churches in a Year We’ve just completed a stint of visiting churches in three specific geographic areas. Now our focus shifts to a fourth: the churches to the east of us. We’re on the home stretch of visiting 52 churches in a year. We’ve already visited eight of […]
A Recap of Churches 27 through 44 The churches are starting to blur. Every week seems the same, offering only slight variations on a theme. I’m growing weary of our journey. I’ve realized this for a few weeks but didn’t want to admit it. Yes, I still notice kindnesses offered and innovations presented at the […]
Preparing to Visit Our Next 13 Churches Going forward in our journey of visiting 52 Churches, we may bypass more churches on our list to vary the scope of our adventure. So far, we’ve skipped one that wasn’t a Christian gathering and another because they were in limbo, pending a turnaround. The next thirteen churches […]
Here’s an Overview After Visiting Our First 13 Churches We’re one-quarter of the way through our journey. It’s been more than what I’d hoped for and at the same time, not as much of what I expected. In attending the churches closest to home in our rural, white, middle-class area I expected little racial diversity, […]
Learn More about 52 Churches Discover more in the 52 Churches infographic to see key insights and data about the churches my wife and I visited in a year as covered in my book 52 Churches . Click on the above image to get a better look or download your own copy of the 52 Churches infographic. Whether or […]
We’ll Bypass Visiting This Church (For Now) So far, we’ve visited twelve churches. With one exception—a spiritual community that wasn’t exclusively Christian—we’ve faithfully attended every church on our list, according to their distance from home. As our journey continues, we’ll skip some to maximize the breadth of our experience. The first church we’re skipping is […]
Apprehension about Visiting Our First Congregation It’s Sunday morning, and we’ve yet to visit our first church. Even though it’s only been a week, I already miss my friends at our church. I already miss what I know and expect, even though I know to expect the unexpected. At least the unexpected happens in a […]