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10 Honest Observations from a Former Church Insider

7. The sermons are rarely memorable. 

This is a huge problem because in every church we’ve visited the sermon is clearly designed to be the crescendo/centerpiece of the entire service.  

I won’t tell you where we went last, but I can’t tell you even one sentence from the sermon and I listened the whole doggone time.

6. In my church training, I always learned that parents will go to a church that they like just a little bit if the kids LOVE it…

But that parents will leave a church they like a lot if the kids don’t like it.  

It’s true.  I preferred one church in New York personally but the kids didn’t like it at all.  

We went back one time. The kids didn’t like it again. I love it. We never went back.  

DOUBLE DOWN ON WHAT YOU DO FOR KIDS. Make it even bigger and better than what you do for adults!!

5. I honestly don’t remember if I acted this way when I was a pastor, but I’ve had a few pastors act really weird over their church members volunteering to help with something I was leading outside of the church.  

Each time it baffled me. Don’t act like you own your members. I’m not going to start a church with them. They can volunteer outside of your church.  

It’s healthy. Don’t be weird and don’t act so insecure fellas.

4. When I pastored Courageous Church we spent an outrageous amount of time on announcements.  

I was slightly aware that we spoke of our announcements too many times. Now that I am on the other end of things, IT IS CRAZY.  

Don’t have an announcement video, then an announcement flyer, then have the pastor restate all of the announcements, then have a host come do it at the end.  

Cut almost all of it out.  

Do it once and have a flyer. If the pastor has to emphasize something, have them only say something about one thing, but my guess is that unless it’s urgent, let the pastor just preach. It goes in one ear and out the other, it drags the service on an extra half an hour, and it’s just not effective.