The Dumpy Restaurant with the Great Food
Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 4:00AM 
You sometimes hear people argue that people make their mind up about a church in the first two or three minutes. People decide whether to return to a church, they say, long before the service ever starts. That's why it's important to focus on things like parking, greeters, washrooms, and a warm atmosphere.
I've heard this argument used to almost push the sermon and some of the core elements of church to the side. Why focus on preaching when people have made up their minds long before the sermon even starts?
There's some truth to the argument that first impressions are important. When I go to a church for the first time I can usually tell a lot in the first few minutes. Yes it's an attractional mindset, but it's partly true.
But the irony of this way of thinking hit me yesterday. Last night I ate in a hole of a restaurant. I went out of my way to go there. The chairs were uncomfortable. The washrooms were atrocious. The place looks like a dump. There were tons of chain restaurants nearby that look nicer. Why did I go there? The first impressions suck, but the food is amazing. I'll be going back.
I'm not the only one. A bunch of us got talking yesterday about an Indian restaurant just up the road. It doesn't look like much, but two of our staff rave about it. It's right around the corner from my favorite Thai restaurant. It's another restaurant that doesn't impress at first, but the food is incredible.
People may be impressed by good parking and washrooms. But it's ultimately the food that matters. The chain restaurants with professionally decorated decor and mediocre food will always be around. But they rarely (ever?) have the best food. I want good food, and I'll go out of my way to get it, and if I have to go to the dumpy restaurant to get it, I will.
Sometimes it's not the first impressions that count the most, at least not in the long run. In a church, things like preaching and discipleship do matter, even in an attractional approach. The chains may look good, but don't be fooled. People need substance. Redecorate the women's bathroom and work on parking, yes. That's actually important. But don't skimp on the things that really matter most, the things you'll remember long after the first impressions are forgotten.
Reader Comments (11)
I agree that balance is key. I can name a lot of fancy, expensive restaurants with bland, expensive food. On the other hand, a run down, dirty restaurant kills my appetite; I don't want to touch anything, much less eat there.
Darryl,Thanks for these thoughts! At the recent Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors Conference John Loftness gave a talk on the realities (and advantages!) of pastoring a smaller church. (You can get it here: http://sgm.edgeboss.net/download/sgm/teaching/pastors_conference_2010/pc2010_session3_loftness.mp3)One really helpful observation he made is this: - Big churches have opportunity for excellence, but the challenge is relationship - Small churches have opportunity for relationship, but the challenge is excellenceThat was really helpful to me because it seems that what can happen sometimes is when we pastors of smaller churches go to those bigger churches and see the 'excellence' we tend to want that in our contexts as well. So what do we do? We push our people to be 'excellent', to try to meet that challenge. But what we miss in the process is the reality that we have a unique opportunity for relationship, which we are sacrificing on the altar of excellence.Excellence is a challenge worth striving for in a smaller church. But not at the expense of relationships, and definitely not at the expense of clear gospel proclamation.
Sorry, should've used a shortlink or something for that audio.The conference audio is all available here: http://bit.ly/fy7FfF The message itself is here: http://bit.ly/esTBvU
Hmmmmm. Provocative little discussion. I like Julien's comments because my fear is that the dumpy little church with great sermons and great relationships (ie. everyone knows everyone else), uses that as an excuse to not change their three year old bulletin boards and thirty year old carpet.
We just moved to a new town and had decided before we moved where we were going to go to church. But after moving and actually meeting the people there, we decided to look elsewhere. The church we ended up at was not where we thought we would go. The deciding factor was the people we met. They were warm and friendly and wanted to know all our kids' names. They truly wanted to know us. That made a difference. The next week when we returned a few of the people we had met remembered our names and gave us the same warm welcome. They made us feel a part of their family. We love our church!
When I eat at a restaurant as long as there aren't cockroaches I don't care how dirty it is. Good manly food, especially steak or any kind of beef, makes the difference. Long live the grill !
Thank God HE measures "excellence" with a different yardstick than we do.On a camping trip with a friend w-a-a-y up north, (I think Nunavut was the next village over,) we visited a little country church on a Sunday morning. There were only ten congregants apart from the Pastor, his wife and his son. The carpets were at least thirty years old, and the piano was out of tune and missing at least one key. The worship service was led by the Pastor himself, and accompanied enthusiastically by his wife on the piano and two young men on acoustic guitars. The singing of hymns went on for ages,... they probably sang every hymn in their repertoire.To be honest with you I was feeling VERY uncomfortable. I was actually embarrassed for the "team" because they were so out of tune and not exactly accomplished musicians. I remember distinctly wishing they would just stop making such awful fools of themselves and get to the sermon.I suddenly felt VERY out of tune with my Heavenly Father. Believe it or not, an almost audible voice said to me: "Well, they sound wonderful to ME, and I am proud of them!" Consider me chastised!By the way, the people were extremely warm, welcoming and friendly. We were even invited to lunch, a communal affair where each member provided something for the table. They showed genuine interest in their visitors and included us in their conversations almost as if we were family.
To Art...I've been in those situations too. And I have sought, like you, to be in a good place about it. I appreciate so much the counsel of one of my seminary profs who told us to find something from the Lord in every stinker of sermon we heard in chapel. I always saw him writing stuff down. While excellence wasn't always apparent, we could see hear from the Lord.But that doesn't excuse the preacher from his responsibility to preach excellent sermons...to do the work of studying and preparing. Bad sermons are tragic and betray laziness and carelessness. God may use it by his grace as he used Balaam and Balaam's donkey to communicate his Word. But that doesn't mean we should be anything like Balaam.It must be both! The church must strive for excellence in preaching, in worship, and yes, in the environment we create for worship. How is that anything less than an offering to God? It isn't the most important thing, but it is important.In Leviticus and in Revelation we see elaborate plans for the Temple and for our eternal home. The grandeur and awesomeness of the construction and the detail of the decor are stunning and without dispute. And never is it anything other than about the heart of the worshiper.Unless your church was recently demolished by an earthquake or a rebel attack or your government persecutes you, there's no excuse for a Canadian or American church to be a dumpy little restaurant.Serve great food AND have a clean and up to date restaurant.
Todd, Not so fast. In a sinful world, with limited resources of time and talent, it is not always easy to have both excellence of environment and excellence of preaching and worship. Your both/and desires are admirable, but not always do-able. Ask any church planter. These come in seasons.You mentioned the call to excellence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Those books do have those plans; I agree. But we often forget that God also did not GIVE those plans to Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or even Joseph. He waited until the people of God had matured to the point where they were ready to make such a tabernacle, and then temple. And, the tabernacle was less sophisticated, less 'excellent,' than the temple. God upgraded His 'excellence' expectations in seasons, over time.The same goes with the early church. They met in dungeons and households, at riverbanks and upper rooms, at the beginning. There were no church buildings for a generation or more.New churches, or old churches that need renewing, have limited resources and need to choose where to put their energy, and their 'excellence.'The real issue is: what is of highest priority? Make sure that is what is always excellent. The restaurant is in the feeding business; so feeding people should be their highest priority. Ironically, so is Christ's church. We feed people the gospel food that alone nourishes us. So I am with Darryl - make sure the food is excellent when people come to church. Make sure Christ in His excellence is presented vividly and clearly Make sure fellowship is real. The worship is God- honouring. That is central. The rest is dessert.
Dan:I've planted a church, so I know something about excellence in stages. Don't disagree at all with what you've said. To the church planter I would say, do fewer things and do them well. If the trajectory is toward excellence, fantastic. You won't get it right every week and it may take a while to get there, but you're trying and you have it as a value. The reality is that so many churches aren't even trying and don't value excellence at all.My argument is more to Darryl's point...the dumpy restaurant pictures a church that has been around for a while, has been doing everything the same way forever and has the same customer base with a few new people who stop in from time to time. The question there often becomes one of entrenchment and lack of vision. Values become skewed and people no longer sacrifice for the mission. A dumpy church, as I see it, is an old church where people have become comfortable with what they have and disinterested in doing what it takes to attract new "customers".
My little church in the country was situated in a village with a population of less than a hundred people. For them to have ten percent of the population as congregants says quite a lot, I think.The church was so small, there was no way it could support a full-time Pastor. He had to commute some hundred+ miles to work every day. Tithes were often in the form of home-made foods and goodies.The sermon may not have been a classic; it may not have passed the scrutiny of Haddon; maybe there were no weekly souls saved; but it was Christ-centered and enlightening. The Pastor, and the congregation, did what they could with what they had,... and did it well.I would rather worship in a church like that than in a crystal palace with all the advantages and none of the soul and spirit. I would rather partake of five loaves and two fishes with genuine people who really care, than a prime rib among people who can't even be bothered to greet each other, never mind the newcomers.And, by the way, I have worshipped in a church that had holes in the wall and no roof to speak of. The floor wasn't much more than sun-baked and foot-flattened mud. A child used a tree branch to sweep the pathway to the "door" for every person who came. God was present there much more powerfully than in some of the "edifices to excellence" I have attended.Sorry, I think we sometimes focus too much on the externals to the detriment of what really matters. Give me a "greasy-spoon" (clean and tidy, but not necessarily all gleaming and polished,) with good and tasty food and friendly service. MUCH better than five-star joint with bland food and a built-in fifteen percent gratuity.