First impressions are critical for every church—they are the gateway to connection for everyone who either attends your services in person or engages with them online. In today’s ministry climate of uncertainty about the future, it’s imperative for every church to both optimize their first impressions and be extremely clear about what they’re inviting people to engage with. And the pervading sense of uncertainty about the future that I hear from pastors these days clouds every conversation about these issues.

For many pastors, uncertainty began well before March 2020 when COVID froze society. Worship attendance was already plateauing or declining thanks to a solid five years of diminishing frequency of regular participants' attendance. Pastors were navigating a confusing debate about the pros and cons of online church. And they were grappling with stubborn divisions in American society that members brought with them into church, threatening to divide it.

Then COVID hit. Attendance frequency dropped to zero. Online church rose to 100 percent. And the divisions in society and church expanded into open wounds.

COVID has brought the loss of things we would never want to lose, including the lives of precious people in our communities. At the same time, COVID has taken away something we were ripe to lose—reliance on models of church inadequate to the methods of Jesus.

COVID has brought the loss of things we would never want to lose, including the lives of precious people in our communities. At the same time, COVID has taken away something we were ripe to lose—reliance on models of church inadequate to the methods of Jesus.

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LOWER ROOM–UPPER ROOM

I find it's helpful to picture every church as a two-story house with a lower room and an upper room. The Lower Room contains four elements that draw people in: place (building), personalities (leaders), people (friends), and programs (activities). The primary goal in the Lower Room is engagement. We want to draw people in, over time, to deeper levels of engagement with the ministries and activities of the church.

The Lower Room is hugely important. This is why first impressions ministries are critical and provide a direct boost to the rest of the church. The initial experience people have with church can determine whether or not they ever return as well as their likelihood of moving into deeper engagement in small groups or in finding a place to serve in the church.

Many church leaders refer to this process of moving people toward deeper engagement with the church as assimilation. This name reflects the primary goal I mentioned above—we want to assimilate people into the church—specifically into increased engagement with the ministries of the church.

Every church needs a Lower Room. Every church needs an effective assimilation process that invites, encourages, and challenges people to deeper levels of engagement. The problem, however, is that there is a dangerous hidden assumption lurking in the Lower Room. The assumption is that more time spent in the ministries and activities of the church consistently produces growing and multiplying disciples of Jesus.

There is a dangerous hidden assumption lurking in the Lower Room. The assumption is that more time spent in the ministries and activities of the church consistently produces growing and multiplying disciples of Jesus.

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Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. There are certainly people in our churches who are growing as disciples of Jesus and maybe a few who are sharing their faith. But by large, the current model that most churches use is incomplete. If all we have is a Lower Room—an assimilation process that draws people into increased involvement in church ministries—we don’t have a system that is intentionally built to produce disciples of Jesus. We have a system that is designed to produce attenders.

So what is the solution?

We need to move beyond a Lower Room–only model and intentionally build and lead people toward an Upper Room.

The Upper Room contains God's unique disciple-making vision for your church; it's supposed to draw people up. Instead of being emotionally attached to a specific program or a charismatic leader or even the great relationships they build at church, we want people to be emotionally connected to the church’s mission in the world and your church’s specific expression of that mission in your community.

When people are motivated by purpose and mission, their growth isn’t simply measured by their engagement with the Lower Room ministries and activities of the church. Their growth is measured by the transformation of their heart as evidenced by how they relate to people in every area of life, how they actively pursue ways to be the light of Jesus in the neighborhoods and in their workplaces, and how they share the good news of Jesus with others.

We need to move beyond a Lower Room–only model and intentionally build and lead people toward an Upper Room.

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COVID AND THE LOWER ROOM

COVID caused such turmoil in churches because it wrecked the Lower Room with the force of a hurricane almost overnight. It revealed what had been true long before the pandemic struck: most people with a church home—and probably more than leaders suspected—are emotionally attached to the Lower Room, not the Upper Room. The Lower Room's demolition sent leaders scrambling to build some kind of shelter.

Yet COVID didn't only reveal truth about churches. It also uncovered just how much leaders are attached to the Lower Room—usually through no conscious intention of their own. As I detail in my book Future Church with Cory Hartman, leaders are under enormous, constant pressure to spend all their energy on the Lower Room and to define success in Lower Room terms like worship attendance. Today's miserable Lower Room scorecard for many churches makes the COVID crisis a personal crisis for many leaders, causing them to leave full-time ministry in record numbers.

Yet in the same stroke, COVID has also given pastors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The leaders I know didn't get into ministry to run Lower Room programs but to make Upper Room disciples. The breaking of church norms now heralds the chance to break attachment to the Lower Room. This is the golden moment to recenter the church around God's vision of disciple making, by shifting our goal from assimilation to multiplication.

This is the golden moment to recenter the church around God's vision of disciple making, by shifting our goal from assimilation to multiplication.

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CHURCH LEADERS CAN MODEL THE MOVE TO THE UPPER ROOM

As we are inviting people to move to the Upper Room, leaders have the opportunity to model what it looks like to live there. Most leaders’ intentions have long been in the Upper Room already, but many times we remain trapped in an inferior, intangible paradigm of church that keeps all of us stuck in a Lower Room system without wanting it or knowing it.

Using clear leadership language, we can paint a picture for people of how life in the Upper Room is better than life in the Lower Room—that even the brightest glimmers of God they've gotten in the Lower Room are nothing compared to the splendor that awaits higher up. Through stories and experiences, leaders can remind people that no matter what Lower Room elements have been lost since March 2020, what is most important is alive and well—indeed, that a reimagined future centered in the Upper Room will ultimately be better than what anyone knew before.

The last year has been foundation-shaking for many leaders. Yet maybe we needed to experience that shaking to drive us from where we’ve been to a future more authentic to Jesus' intent for his church. As painful as the process has been, let’s not waste it! Let’s embrace this time of disruption as a gift from God—an opportunity to forge a better future.