How to Create a Church That Feels Like Home

By: Gerald Fadayomi

In January 2022, I (Gerald) began planting a church in Roswell, Georgia.. As most church planters will say, it has been beautiful mayhem and one of the most difficult seasons of my life. 

Now, since I have been a senior pastor for almost two years, I am an expert and have everything figured out. 

Kidding. 

But, one of the things we have set to try to figure out is how to make our church feel like home. We want to cultivate authentic community where people experience belonging and feel known. 

Of course, that will be a continual process, but there are a few things we have found to be effective in creating that type of environment. 

Everything is personal. 

This is easier said than done. In making everything personal, we have had to do many things that are inefficient but effective. Those are not the same. 

For instance, each week during services, people can write down their prayer requests with their name and phone number on the back. Then, on Thursdays, we sit down as a staff to pray for every request and reach out to every person. 

We also prioritize being personal in our system for welcoming visitors. Instead of inviting guests to fill out a connect card to receive a free gift, we connect with them over coffee so they can learn more about our church and we can know more about them. 

Of course, these things are easy to do when our church is small. Some of these practices may not be scalable for the future, but we want to do what we can to cultivate a personal culture now. As we grow, we will equip other people to be a part of these initiatives and innovate other systems to make sure we can continue to be as personal as possible. 

Children are always present. 

Now, this is both practical and strategic. I have four daughters under four years old. So, for logistical reasons, they are often with us. As a family, we also want to build this church together with our children, so part of the church's DNA is that kids are always welcome. 

However, this is also strategic because of the nature of the community we serve. While the average income is about $110,000 per family unit, six of our sixteen schools are Title 1. There is a unique wealth and poverty gap. At the same time, the average family in our community has three kids. Therefore, if we want to serve our community well, we have to prioritize their kids and invest in the next generation. 

Imperfection is expected. 

Coming from a larger church with high production value, there are some things that used to matter to me a lot that I do not have the margin to care about as much as a church planter. There are spaces that are not perfect to the eye, and there are things that don’t look perfect. For instance, we use nametags that are supposed to be erasable and reusable that aren’t, but instead of buying new nametags, we are just writing over remnants of the names on them from past weeks. 

We do not have the margin to prioritize these things just due to a lack of resources but also because, instead, we want to invest in generously serving our community. So, our time, energy, and budget are going to service projects and partnerships with local schools and nonprofits. 

The good news is that what we have found is our imperfections are actually endearing to our church community. People walk in the doors, take a deep breath, and feel okay that they don’t have it all together because we don’t either. We do strive for a level of excellence, but excellence and authenticity don’t have to contradict each other. We have found that the imperfections and authenticity are what make our church feel like home.

Everybody has a role to play. 

Our mission statement is “To lead people to fully follow Jesus by moving them from consumer to participant.” In my own experience, I have found it is really easy to show up to church on Sunday to check a box but not actually participate in the work of the Gospel Monday through Saturday. 

So, we are constantly asking ourselves, “What can we do to make engaging in our church less consumeristic and more participatory?” 

We do these in small ways, such as doing church in a circle so that people aren’t just staring at a stage every week but actually can see each other engage. We also invite our community to bring donations every week to either be shared with our community or used to serve the community. 

However, the biggest way we have achieved this is through actually changing how we do Sunday programming. The third Sunday of every month is FOR Day which is a break from normal worship programming when we serve our community as a church. We organize service projects throughout the Roswell area and invite families to serve together. 

Not only does this move people to serve and fulfill our mission, but it also just makes sense in our culture and communities. Families are busy, and most cannot engage outside of Sunday service. Therefore, if we want them to serve together, we need to provide opportunities for that during the time they have already set aside. 

We have found that people are looking for ways to make a difference and experience a sense of purpose. Serving together helps make our church feel more like a home where everybody has a role to play.