It's a well-known fact that the number of people who actually go to church services every week is far, far lower than the number of people who claim in surveys to go to church every week. At most, perhaps 20% of Americans attend weekly services. Church leaders don't like this and are looking for creative ways to get people into church - like offering them free gasoline cards.

The Argus Leader reports on the recent tactic adopted by the Renner Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota:

Renner Lutheran Church will entice people to church with a one-time offer of a coupon good for $10 worth of gasoline. ... The offer is good to the first 100 people age 18 or older who come to Renner Lutheran Church’s 9:30 a.m. service Aug. 6. Members of the congregation donated $1,000, so funds for the promotion won’t come out of the church budget.

It is a light-hearted way to counteract the drop in attendance that churches often see in the summer, when parishioners are lured away by vacations, lake homes and lazy mornings on the deck.

It appears that they are given out at the beginning and people are trusted to stick around until the end of services. I have to wonder, though, if free gas is the most morally responsible offer that they could be making. Granted, the price of gas today makes this one of the most attractive things they could offer, but is it appropriate to do something that encourages people to drive around more and thereby use more gas than they otherwise might? I’m sure that with a little time they could have come up with some less questionable ideas.

The best step any church can take is to give people a good, meaningful reason to be there every Sunday, [Ron Sisk, academic vice president and dean at North American Baptist Seminary] said. That means providing a worship service that is engaging, meaningful and helpful in their daily lives.

“If churches do that, if they consistently put people into touch with God, they will come,” Sisk said.

I’m sure that it’s comforting for religious leaders like Sisk to imagine that if ministers were simply doing their job in the manner that they are already supposed to be doing it, then of course they will attract large congregations and everything will be OK. This sort of assumption puts the best possible face on things and includes the idea that there isn’t anything inherently wrong with their message or beliefs, only in the packaging and presentation.

In theory, this may be true — but if these churches were regular businesses, they would have failed a long time ago. Business cannot afford to ride on the illusion that their product is something everyone already wants but just doesn’t realize it because the right packaging and presentation hasn’t been hit upon yet. Sometimes, your product doesn’t sell because it really isn’t sellable — it really isn’t something people want or need, at least not anymore.

 

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