I have been talking a little bit recently about the so-called quiet revival. Here, I spoke about some of the expectations people have when they come to church and the kind of churches people are being drawn toward. Then here, I talked a bit further about how – given the things I said in that first linked post – presence and visibility are key. Finally, here, I spoke about how research on shifting opinions and positions shows that argument and logic have very little to do with it. Rather, the emphasis is on relationships and social contact. I drew some basic lessons from that.

I guess what this is amounts to something of a summary. What should our key take-home be? It seems to me that the primary thing is this: just make yourself available.

If the people being drawn to church and being drawn to the kind of churches that seem fairly churchy, we want to make our church accessible to them. That doesn’t mean watering down anything or taking any of the elements of worship out, as the seeker-sensitive movement once insisted was the best course of action. Rather, it means keeping all those things in, making church feel like church, but simultaneously making the church accessible and available to those looking to go to one.

Likewise, if people are already broadly looking for a church, and they know you are a church-goer and a Christian, one of our best evangelistic tools at the moment is presence and visibility. People looking for a church will aim to find one. They may well find yours if yours is at all visible. Which means basic things like have an accessible and findable website, reasonable signage and perhaps some local advertising that you are there might be far more valuable now than they were perhaps 20 or 30 years ago. Likewise, having a decent presence in the town is a positive on this front. Not only does presence make you more generally visible, it also displays something of the fruit of the gospel your church proclaims. Those looking for a church because they value the fruit of Christianity will be drawn to the churches they can find that appear to be doing the kind of stuff that made Christianity appealing to them in the first place.

Moreover, if social contact and personal relationships are the primary tools for leading people to consider changing their opinions and worldview, we are going to need to invest wholeheartedly in the building of relationships. It means our outreach activities need to be directed towards (and we need to be clear on exactly which direction they point) either displaying the fruit of the gospel as a broad witness to the community or drawing people into contact with us with whom we might establish credible relationships. If our outreach activities aren’t pointing toward or leading to these ends, we may want to ask questions about their value and viability.

But if we take all that in the round, one of the key points we should hear is to do with availability and visibility. We are most likely to be visible, accessible and present – allowing those who are keen to find a church find us – is if we are generally available. There are any number of ways you might make yourself both visible and available. I don’t intend to list them all or get into it now. But the point remains: right now, two of the best things we can do for our communities and the advance of the gospel is to make ourselves visible and available.