By Jeff Tillson
There’s a moment most ministry leaders have had, even if they’ve never said it out loud.
You’re in a staff meeting. Someone asks whether you’re actually reaching new people — people who weren’t already churched, already convinced, already on their way in. And the room gets quiet. Not because no one has an answer. Because everyone knows the honest answer is uncomfortable.
You’re doing a lot of things right. Sunday mornings are well executed. Your midweek calendar is active. Your volunteers are committed. And yet the neighbor, the coworker, the friend who says,”I’m spiritual” and genuinely means something by it — they’re still on the outside. Without a
shift, indefinitely.
That’s not a failure of effort. It’s a signal worth paying attention to.
I spent years in vocational ministry to truly reach people. To genuinely see lives transformed and stories redeemed. But with the wrong instincts about how to do it. I overhyped programming. I wrote messages around questions I assumed unchurched people were asking. I assigned our most energetic volunteers in places where they would “smile people” toward greater involvement. I thought I was being strategic. And I thought strategic was winning.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize: the people who are farthest from the Church aren’t asking whether your programming is high quality or relevant. Far from it. They’re carrying quieter
questions than we think. And most of our outreach doesn’t create space for those questions — it skips right past them.
Three questions the Church keeps missing:
Is faith even good?
Am I a person here, or a project?
Can I belong before I believe?
This one is quiet, but it’s the deepest. Many people assume that church is for people who have already settled their doubts, answered their questions, and figured things out. As leaders, we know that isn’t true but our church culture is commuicating something different. Think for a moment about Jesus. Jesus had a remarkable ability to create space for people before they fully understood Him. People often experienced a compelling connection to Him long before grasping what following Him might look like. The churches people are hungry for will step into our cultural moment similarly. Not by lowering convictions or compromising truth, but by creating environments where people can explore faith honestly while experiencing authentic community.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: most of our ministry infrastructure is designed for people who are already moving toward faith. The programming works beautifully for the people already in the room. And we wonder why the room isn’t growing — or isn’t growing in the ways we hoped.What changes when a church creates genuine space for honest questions — before asking for anything? When someone can show up week after week, doubting, circling, not deciding — and nobody treats that as a problem? What becomes possible in a community where the price of admission is curiosity rather than conviction?
I’ve seen it, and it’s not dramatic. It’s actually quiet.
My guess is that’s the church you’re hungry for too. I know it’s the one I’m hungry for. The good news: It’s not too late. In fact, you actually might be right on time.
It starts with a question. It starts with a table. It starts with a community that has decided to lead with welcome before it leads with anything else.
If you want to go deeper on what this looks like in practice — the culture, the method, the stories of churches who are seeing it work — The Alpha Conference is where that conversation happens. It’s where ministry leaders come when they’re ready to build something that actually reaches the people they keep thinking about.
