Most churches have a pretty significant dirty secret that they don’t like talking about . . .

For every 10 new people that arrive at church . . . 9 of them don’t “stick”.

Is that true at your church?  Do you know what that number looks like?

I’d be willing to bet that it’s something like that.

It’s really too bad.  We spend a lot of time jumping up and down trying to convince our people to invite their friends.  When they finally do get them to show up to church . . . the chance of them staying is really low.  (Which means our people are “rewarded” with their friends being connected to church . . . which in turn means it’s hard to motivate people to invite.  A nasty cycle.)

This assimilation stat is a dirty secret and it stinks.

Imagine if you ran a theme park and 50,000 people showed up in the parking lot in the morning but only 5,000 actually came in and enjoyed the rides!

What if you had a restaurant where 100 people came in to get some of those great free samples but only 10 actually stayed for a meal?

This seems like the kind of thing that we should probably do something about?

I know at the churches that I’ve worked . . . that 90% of people not staying is pretty close.

This week I’m going to write about some tactics that we are working on here at Liquid Church to try to move to one in three people staying.  Not a bunch of rocket science but a few little things we are working on that might stir the conversation.

I would love to hear what you are doing to help keep people that arrive at your church!  Leave some comments now!