How to help church members turn good intentions into action

TL;DR

Help people decide when, where and how they will act, rather than only asking them to agree. Specific plans can support people who already want to respond but have not got round to it.

More "motivation" doesn't work

I know most people who receive this are pastors, or preach from time-to-time, and today I’ve got something that will be particularly interesting if you’ve ever stood at the front of a church hoping the message would motivate members to change their behaviour.

Before I start, I want to say something.

Preaching is one of the most important things we do to motivate or inspire our church members, so this isn't about replacing anything.

But today I want to show you something you might be missing, and that is surprisingly effective at behaviour change.

So if you’re trying to get more people to pray, get more people to an event, or get more people involved in general, this might be interesting for you.

We have to start with some behavioural psychology.

What a study of intentions and action illustrates

In the 1960s, researchers at Yale wanted students to go and get a tetanus jab.

They gave them a booklet explaining how serious tetanus is. Some students got a frightening version, with photographs and persuasive language. Others got a far milder version.

Then they measured who actually went to the health centre and got their jab.

The frightening version made no real difference. Almost nobody went, in either group.

When the researchers checked, the students had understood the message perfectly.

They knew tetanus was serious.

They agreed they should get vaccinated.

They fully intended to.

They just didn’t go.

A specific plan helped people follow through

The researchers tried something else with another group. Same booklet. But this time they handed out a campus map with the health centre circled, and asked each student to look at their week and decide when they would go.

The number who actually turned up multiplied several times over.

These were final-year students. They already knew where the health centre was. The map told them nothing.

What changed is that “I should get a jab at some point” became “Thursday, after my eleven o’clock lecture.”

Help willing people decide when, where and how to act

Psychologists call this an implementation intention.

Deciding in advance when, where and how you’ll do a thing, rather than simply deciding that you’d like to.

The interesting part of the study is that every group knew the jab was important and everyone intended to get it done, but only one group actually took action.

Which brings us to church.

When participation in something is low, our instinct is to raise the temperature.

• Preach on it again.

• Make the appeal more urgent.

• Explain again why it matters.

• Add more and more...

That’s the frightening leaflet.

It moves how people feel, and it doesn’t always move what they do.

Practical ways to help church members make a plan

Ask when, not whether.

“Will you commit to praying more this year?” gets a yes and nothing else. “Which morning this week?” goes a step further.

Offer times, not an open door.

“Come to prayer whenever you can” is an open-ended invitation to decide later, and later never arrives. “Tuesday the 14th or Tuesday the 21st, which works?” is a decision somebody can actually make.

Get the plan made in the room.

While people are sitting there. On paper, on a phone, out loud to the person next to them. Not “have a think this week”.

Especially for inviting people.

Every church makes the carol service appeal. Almost none of them ask the two questions that matter - who are you inviting, and when are you going to ask them.

Stop escalating.

If people agree with you and still aren’t doing it, a stronger message isn’t always the missing piece, sometimes the you're missing specific next steps.

Use planning to support people who already want to act

This isn’t a way of getting people to do things they don’t want to do.

It only works on people who already intend to and don’t get round to it.

The reality is, I think that happens a lot in our churches. Well meaning members, but they're lives just get busy.