Five things that have changed since 1985
The methods most older church members were taught — the Roman Road, the Four Spiritual Laws, the door-to-door tract drop, the tent revival, the bus ministry — were not wrong. They were brilliant for their moment. They worked because they fit the culture they were built for. That culture is over.
1. The cultural assumption of Christianity has collapsed.
In 1985, more than 70% of Americans identified as Christian, and about half attended church monthly. Today fewer than 45% identify as Christian and only about a quarter attend monthly. Among adults under 35, religiously unaffiliated ("nones") are now the largest single category. You cannot assume the person you meet on the street has even a grade-school understanding of who Jesus is.
2. Trust in institutions has cratered.
Every major American institution — government, media, public schools, organized religion — has lost public trust over the last forty years. The church specifically has been damaged by abuse scandals, financial scandals, political entanglement, and the broader cultural narrative of religious hypocrisy. People are not anti-Jesus. They are anti-institution. They will accept an invitation from you long before they will accept one from your building.
3. Attention has fractured.
The average American adult sees an estimated 4,000 to 10,000 advertising messages per day. Mass advertising — including church mass advertising — has become background noise. A flyer on a windshield, a billboard on the highway, a social media post buried in a feed — these now compete with everything else screaming for attention. Personal invitation cuts through what mass invitation cannot.
4. "Stranger danger" has retrained us.
Door-to-door evangelism worked in 1965 because culturally, opening the door to a stranger was normal. Today it is rare and often suspect. Cold-contact evangelism is fighting against forty years of cultural conditioning that says strangers are threats. Warm-contact evangelism — pulling up through an existing relationship — is fighting with the grain instead of against it.
5. The unchurched have stories — and they are not always wrong.
Most people you will pull up to are not blank slates. They have church experiences, often painful ones. A grandfather who was a deacon and a domestic abuser. An aunt who got asked to leave the church when she got pregnant. A father who watched his pastor drive a Bentley while the lights got cut off. A cousin who was told their sexuality made them unwelcome. Whatever the story, it is real, and it deserves to be heard before it gets corrected.
"The post-Christian person does not need a better presentation. They need to meet a Christian who is not what they expect a Christian to be." — Adapted from Rick Richardson, Evangelism Outside the Box
What the data actually says works in 2026
Research from organizations like Barna, Lifeway, and the Pew Research Center is remarkably consistent on this point: the single highest predictor of whether an unchurched American will attend a church service is a personal invitation from a friend, family member, or coworker. Not a Facebook ad. Not a billboard. Not a sermon clip. A personal invitation from someone they trust.
| Method | Approximate response (would-attend rate) | What this means |
|---|---|---|
| Mass mailer | Low single digits | Rare yield. High cost per contact. |
| Social media ad | Low single digits | Better, but still mostly noise. |
| Cold door-to-door | Low to mid single digits | Limited and culturally fading. |
| Invitation from a stranger at an event | Modest | Real but limited to the moment. |
| Invitation from a trusted friend | Substantially higher | By far the most effective approach. |
Note: published response rates for trusted-friend invitation in research from Lifeway, Barna, and Pew typically range from the 50%–82% "would consider attending" band, with actual attendance landing more modestly. Whatever the exact number, the comparative gap between mass channels and personal invitation is not close.
The 7-touch principle
Marketing researchers have known for decades that the average consumer needs around seven "touches" — distinct, meaningful contacts with a message — before they take action. The same is increasingly true for spiritual decisions. Almost nobody walks into a church the first time someone mentions Jesus to them. They walk in after the seventh, eighth, or fifteenth conversation.
This is why event-only evangelism fails so often. A great Sunday service is one touch. The Pull Up Movement is built to deliver the other six in the eight weeks before that Sunday: a text, a meal, a prayer, a coffee, a backyard cookout, a handwritten card, a check-in after a hard week. By the time the invitation comes, the person being invited has been loved on purpose seven times. That is a different conversation.
Leader's Note
Pastors and ministry leaders: this chapter will create resistance from older saints who built the church through the methods we are critiquing. Honor them. They were faithful with the methods of their day. We are not dishonoring their work; we are extending it. Frame the Pull Up Movement as the same Great Commission, in the new clothes of the new culture. Bring your most respected elders into the early conversations and let them speak the new language alongside you.