How to Deal with different Types of Church Attendees

How to deal with different types of church attendees examines different typical types of people which attend a church service.

Contents

1 Who am I?
2 The Teenie Bopper
3 The Expert Church Fixer Upper
4 The Ladder Climber
5 The Salesman
6 The Gossiper
7 What is the Right Reason to Attend Church?
8 A few more points
9 The Church is spiritual workshop
- 9.1 More Articles on the Church
- 9.2 More Articles on the Church Attendance

Who am I?

I am a pastor on the mission field since 1986. I have seen and dealt with many different people that have come to my church. What I am focusing on in this article is the difference between people in a typical church, if there is such a thing. Every pastor of a church that has been pastoring for a while knows that the people in attendance at his church are varied. In this post, I am reflecting on those differences, and how a wise pastor understands and deals with people in his church.

The goal of this post is for you the reader to reflect on why you go to church and what you expect from attending church, in relation to what God wants. I will put points along the way as to what should be a good Christian’s reason for going to church.

The Teenie Bopper

A teenie bopper is what I consider a teen girl who lives for the fashion statements, and how she enslaves her life to the latest trend. The characteristics of this girl are (1) she has to be informed of what is the newest fashion, (2) she has to have or practice the newest fashion, (3) she insists that everybody that is “in her world” must also follow that trend, (4) she selectively forgets all of yesterday’s foolishness that she followed and caused so much ruckus about, and focuses on other people somewhere dictating to her what today’s trends are going to be.

The church attendee like this is somebody who tries to “be up on all the recent trends” of Christianity. A few years back, one of these was the prayer of Jabez. But as with these people, they simply are people placed in your church by Satan to steer everything in the church from one fashion statement to another. What happened to going to the Bible and following the clear teaching of the Bible?

1 Chronicles 4:10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.

I won’t get into how this trend was focusing on a person’s exaltation of himself, but you get the idea. People pushed this trend in churches. Should we pray? Yes. Should we seek God’s blessing? Yes. But the point is not obeying the Bible but “making a splash” in everybody’s eyes because you, the trend setter, (really the trend copier) are declaring this an absolute necessity.

As a pastor, what I see in this kind of person is somebody who is trying to high jack the energies and focus of the church, and again, these are young people who have no history of faithful service to God. They are people without expertise. Try starting a church, try growing a church, and then come back and talk to me about trends. Churches do not start nor are they growing because of these “new trends in Christianity” things, and even in established churches, they come and go, but they do not have the permanence of Jesus’ claim that He will build His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The Expert Church Fixer Upper

These people (usually middle-aged men from 25 years old to 40) descend on the church from time to time. They have some knowledge of what the church is and how it works, but in their own estimation they are the best experts that ever existed. They come in to the church with a lot of energy and ideas. Furthermore, they are very friendly with the pastor, and his wife with the pastor’s wife.

But their “thing” is that they have their ideas of how a church should be run, and they “humbly” want to inform the pastor that essentially, (1) the pastor knows nothing, (2) the pastor’s idea of doing the work of God is all wrong, (3) the fixer-upper is an expert in church administration, and therefore the pastor should be like a child and obey everything that the fixer-upper dictates. He is always exactly positioned in any church problem to come to the pastor and console the pastor in confrontations or fights, and he presents himself, “If you had listened to me pastor, I could have made the church avoided all this problem.”

But I note when these come, “Where is the church that you started?” These usually go from church to church, selling their wares to whomever will fall into their control. A church is built by faithful work over a long period of time. So are these people out on visitation every week? NO. Are they encouraging new folks who come to visit to make them feel at home? No. Strangely, as expert as they are, they cannot seek out the new people and make them welcome. Because their expertise is in controlling the pastor, and thereby controlling everything in the church.

These people really are irritated if the pastor or church board makes decisions without “discussing it” with them first, and that means letting the fixer-upper make the final decision. I also have noted that while these people are often rich and give large donations to the church, but usually directly to the pastor, buying the pastor something for him or his wife, these are like bribes. If the pastor doesn’t hang on every word of the fixer-upper, the fixer-upper will find another church and pastor that will listen to him.

Truthfully, I don’t want to be nasty, but it is unbelievable how somebody who has never been a pastor nor in the ministry full-time thinks that they have a better understanding of the work of the Lord than a pastor who has committed his life to serving God, and has done that for years. That is like a person thinking that he is a better surgeon that a doctor just because he saw a TV documentary one time on how to remove an appendix. Okay, without offending, no. This is a fool who wants to destroy what labors you have faithfully over time built up.

Again, this type of person want influence and glory (and control) and if you as pastor do not give them what they want, they will move on. They don’t stay around for long, usually unless the pastor becomes their puppet.

The Ladder Climber

This kind of person has a mindset taken from modern business. If a person “gets in the door” as a mail clerk, which is bottom on the totem pole, he immediately wants to define the rungs of the ladder, and want to climb the ladder to the top.

These kinds of people want positions defined, so that they can go up, and they want to call attention to others who are below them on the ladder. Those people are lesser than the ladder climber. They want to emphasize that they are above other people. These kinds of people are really, really frustrated if the pastor hasn’t set up things in a ladder system. In other words, they live on the church’s organizational chart.

The pastor is at the top, and if possible some deacon board or church board is over the pastor, that the ladder climber gets on that group, and is over that group or the head person of that group. That is their life goal, it would seem. These people do not understand that the church is a body. What part of your body is most important? The head, well that would be Christ, then after that? Actually, I want all of my body and all of it is important. Would you like to just have your head, your chest, and all your legs and arms cut off? No, I don’t think so. So all the body is important.

But these kinds of people do not understand the church as God directs and instructs us. They are proud, arrogant, and typically want to be in the center stage of attention of everybody. They get their kicks ruling over, governing over, or just standing in front of others. Some pastors have this problem also. Humility is a hard quality to find among Christians, it seems.

The Salesman

This type of person is very easy to spot. They come into the church, they are not really very active or participate much. But they are always friendly, and notably they take their contacts off to the side and talk in low tones. They are selling something, as a friend in your church, they are wanting to know if you would be interested in what they are selling. Old clothes, AMWAY, some beauty product line, some health foods, even condominiums, etc.

But their interest in the church has a focus point, they “are one of us,” a fellow Christian, but they are trying to help you by selling something to you, or they want you to help them by buying something from them. But they are not faithful in attending every Sunday usually. That is because they are doing the same thing in several churches at the same time.

The Gossiper

Leviticus 19:16 Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD.

Most of these people on my list are people that want glory and fame for themselves, and a few that want to enrich themselves with their church experience, or gain control and power over people and organizations just because they are who they are.

When women find that they are excluded from the showmanship positions in the church, they cannot be pastors, deacons, adult Sunday School teachers, or on church boards, they are likely to take an influencer position. While God prohibits women in these leadership roles, the pastor’s wife is usually the only woman that God uses as an influencer. She has the duty to lead the women. But some women want to control the pastor’s wife, and she should keep her husband in line with what the influencer-gossip says.

A gossip discloses personal information about people in such a way as to entertain themselves or to control people and situations. A gossiper is a basic distrust between friends. What information she obtains, she uses as merchandise to get attention, glory, fame to herself. If somebody starts off with, “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling anybody this, but…” Just stop them in their tracts and say, “Then don’t. Don’t tell me, either.” As a pastor over the years, I have heard a lot of personal information that people have told me “in confidence.” But with every “confession” (I am not a priest, so confess to God, not me. I will help, and I need some information, but don’t give me the gory details.) I have a responsibility. Firstly, to pray for that situation. Secondly, I need to give wise counsel to that person. At times, somebody else needs to be brought into the circle. A wife confessing to marriage problems usually means, “please ask your husband to join us.” Many times a disobedient and problem child, I need to talk to that child.

But gossips come to your church to influence in subtle behind closed doors ways. (Backstabbers always have to get behind the person to do their dirty work.) Gossip does nothing good for the people of God, and it never does the work of God. Bringing issues out into the open is the work of God. In 99% of the times, names and particular people never need to be mentioned. A pastor can deal with lying without mentioning any individuals in particular he is talking about.

Gossipers want to control the course of the church. It is very important not to open a channel of information through particular individuals, like gossipers. Pastors need to talk directly to everybody in the church, and find issues to preach on through their talks with their members.

What is the Right Reason to Attend Church?

Over the years, I continue to discover the jewels that God has for us. I am not “there” yet as far as knowing everything. But these things I have on my short list.

(1) A Christian needs spiritual food.

A person goes to church because they are not an expert Bible student, that has devoted their life full time to studying the Word of God. If your pastor doesn’t fit this profile, find another church. We should all studying the Bible, meditate on it, and let the Bible effect moral change in our lives. That is for everybody. But a church is designed and constructed by God to help us understand more and more of the Bible. People who just talk a lot in the pulpit are a danger to you. They need to use the Word of God as the power to change lives for the better. If the preacher does not constantly resort to the Bible to instruct people, he is wrong. Who is this guy? Why does his opinion matter? Pastors are just some guy with an opinion. But preachers who expound the Word of God for all to understand, that is a gem.

I am really on a constant war on this matter. But preachers should ALWAYS preach for moral change in their audience, not just communication of facts. All good preachers use facts. They state “the Bible says in such-n-such a place this.” But they keep their opinion out of their preaching for the most part, or clearly set their opinion off from “thus saith the Lord.” “In my opinion,…”

(2) A Christian needs a real life example of what living for Christ is

God has not sent angels, spirit beings, in the church to teach us each Sunday, descending every Sunday morning and ascending again to heaven after the service is over. There is a profound reason for this. Moral change absolutely needs to be founded on the person doing the teaching actually lives the moral principles he is espousing. It is by first the reputation of the preacher, in his personal life, that makes people listen in the first place. A hypocrite has nothing of interest to say to me. I want to see somebody who dominates the principles. You just don’t go to hear a fat person talk about dieting. If they were fat, got their life under control, and now are normal or skinny, okay, talk to me.

God has instituted individuals who are examples of Christ to be local in each church to show the brethren, “that it can be done, look at my life.” As a pastor, I like King David. This man was a believer. He was saved. But God revealed so much of his errors, one would ask, “Why did God approve of David?” The point is being an example of Christ doesn’t mean you are sinless, just that you are trying exceptional hard.

(3) A Christian needs emotional encouragement by people in like situations

One of the important but ignored elements of churches, as God wants them to be, is that sibling fellowship element. Other people who are Christians like me, and having problems, how do they make it? With the pastor and the leaders of the local church, they are examples of Christlikeness. But our brethren provide an important encouragement (or they should). There is something that soothes and calms the soul when somebody else is going through the meat grinder, and they are nervous, but they can talk to you. If you go to the dentist’s office, and in the waiting room, you and the person beside you both are in pain, but there is solace in their being there with you.

So Satan destroys this by making churches hot beds of anger and aggression one against another. Nobody wants to get in their. If there is a shallow pit with 5 bull dogs fighting, would you want to step in there? No.

But the point is, God’s salvation is a conversion, a moral change in the Christian. We should love God if we are saved. But having said that, loving God is not so easy to do or see if it is real in yourself. God knows because He is God, He made us. But we do not know ourselves.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Note that Jesus answered this person’s question (what is the one principal commandment) with a tw fold answer. First, you must love God. How do you love God? That is difficult. It is difficult to define, and it is difficult to test if you are loving God. One part of this is if you love God, you will obey God’s commandments, and they will not be a burden to you. But God combines this principle with love your neighbor.

Our salvation is a moral change in us. This is very easy to see and test. How do your treat others?

Matthew 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Matthew 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? Matthew 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Matthew 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Jesus made a horrible statement here. God sees your salvation or lack of it in how you treat others. So to understand this, salvation is a moral change with you. This new morality, being a child of God, is clearly and easily seen by how you treat other people.

A few more points

The key word in my word above is “love.” People do not understand love. There is the world’s view of love, then there is how God means it. Love is a spiritual activity. In other words, when you love, you are really worshipping God. While many times, this love is not directed at God, it is in obedience to God, which ends up being you are loving God.

Ephesians 5:1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; Ephesians 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

God will not require you to suddenly in a second be 1 foot taller. He will not ask what is impossible for you to do. But most people think that love is an emotion. Love is like the flu. Who knows how you got into that position, and as suddenly and unexpectedly as you fell in love, you can fall out of love. No, that is not love. That is what the world calls love, but that is not love.

God gives a command to husbands to love their wives. The only way to properly understand love is that it is a spiritual activity. You do it because you are obeying God. “But you don’t know how horrible my wife is treating me!” Yes, I have heard horror stories. But God says we are to love, and that is the mark of a child of God.

Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? Matthew 5:47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

So we are to love others, even our enemies. People who do everything in their power to make our lives worse, those people we are to love. Love doesn’t depend on others loving you first, or responding correctly to your love to them. Love is a revealing of what you are. If you are saved, born again, you will love others. That is what saved people do, always and to all.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

As a preacher, I have problems with this verse. We are saved because we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. Yes, that is the only way to be saved and go to heaven. But then this verse presents a different idea. So to put two plus two, we get four. Here? Somehow love is involved with our salvation in an extreme sense.

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

John himself solves this puzzle. God saves us because of his love towards us. 1 John 4:7, God is love. The essence of God is that He loves. We can define love in a working definition as “Love is my sacrifice for your benefit.” So God sacrificed Jesus’ life on the cross to give us benefit. If that is not just an act of love, but that is the essence of God, this is what defines God as He is, then this is an essential character quality that ALL CHRISTIANS MUST LOVE. “He that loveth not knoweth not God” and “every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God“. If you are thinking “love” means sex, then you are really not understanding God at all.

The Church is spiritual workshop

When we understand that as a saved person, I must love other people. It is like a ray gun. Don’t focus on what you point it at, but on the pure childish fun of having a ray gun shooting it this way and that way. Love. If you don’t have a spouse, siblings, nor parents or family, find somebody and love them. Some poor person with needs. This is the intent of Matthew 25:36-40. The intent of Christ’s words is not that there were a certain person who was sick and you should have visited that sick Christian. The intent is that you are of the type of person that visits sick people to help them.

So we are to constantly be loving others. I am not talking about a physical love, but rather, we are constantly to be showing the love of God to others in this life. If we turn our thoughts to the church again, we need to see the local church as an outworking of that principle. We go to church both to be loved by others and to show God’s love (dwelling in our hearts because we are saved) to others.

I remember seeing a study years back that said that there was a study on the length of life of different people. The people who identified as attending church weekly had longer lives. The conclusion (this was a secular study by unsaved people, and the “church” the subjects attended would have been any type of religious gathering) of this study was that being every week with other people who showed concern and care for your welfare is a life-extending element. That is why old people are placed in contexts where others can show interest in them. Secular community centers have times where they gather and play bingo or do crafts. This gives “quality of life“, and focus to people in old age.

The local church is a place where God has designed it to allow you to show your love to the brethren, and they should respond with loving you also. But when Satan gets involves, everything is to get gain, usually physical, economic gain, but also popularity, fame, glory, and control. These motives are improper for people when they attend a church.

As a pastor, you need to emphasize the difference. Push the right motive for going to church, to obey God, and this is absolutely extending to what you do when at church, how you relate to the people there. You have to love them by making their lives better. Even a kind word of concern is important.