Jesus made connections with all types of folk. How do we know? They followed and changed as they followed.

Christ's Church seems to have a hard time making connections with all types of people. Students of this refer to the front door and back door. People visit - come in through the front door - but having made no connection, they leave - exiting through the back door.

An excellent discussion of this can be found in Turnaround Churches by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson, beginning on page 117.

As I was reading what Stetzer and Dodson found to be true in churches that work hard to make connections - and succeed to a great degree - I thought of the following.

Guests and visitors are looking for more than making a connection between their backside and the topside of a pew or even a chair.

Guests and visitors are already connected with a lifestyle that may have come to question because of the work of God in their lives, but at least it is something they have become useful and with which they can live. Christ's alternative lifestyle and world view must be communicated by modeling and invitation to consider it. A connection with maturing Christian disciples can help this to happen.

One of the points the authors make well is that for the non-Christian, two types of conversion are necessary to make solid and stable connections with God through Christ and Christ's Church. The first is conversion into community. The second is conversion into becoming a Christ follower.

After observing many churches in the course of my service to local churches I have one question: Do churches need to undergo the process of the first type of conversion - the conversion of community - before turnaround can happen?