What are they looking for?

I heard something very interesting on the radio yesterday. According to some recent research from Lifeway when looking for a church to attend the unchurched gravitate more towards churches with a traditional look. The guy on the radio said the same thing I was thinking; "that seems odd." All of the gurus out there paint a picture of the unchurched as being people seeking after the new or the modern. As a result more and more churches are meeting in places that don't look like churches. More and more gimmicks and or methods are being used to "draw" in the unchurched. Yet Lifeway's research shows they are attracted to the older buildings. The reason given my the radio personality was a connection to the past. Unchurched people like the older, gothic style churches because those buildings make them feel a connection to the past.

This totally reinforced my vision as a pastor. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We simply need to do the old things with more passion and zeal. We don't need to build the "me church" where everything is about pleasing self and gratifying self. We can build upon the foundation of the past and use that to reach people for Christ.