Sometimers: Meeting Them Where They Are
The Goal Isn't Attendance
Every lesson in this section so far has offered strategies — velcro connections for one type, barrier removal for the other. It would be easy to read both of those lessons as tactics aimed at a single outcome: getting Sometimers to attend more regularly. That reading misses something important, and this lesson exists to correct it before it becomes the unspoken assumption underneath everything else in this section.
If the ultimate goal is simply higher attendance, every interaction with a Sometimer quietly becomes transactional, whether anyone intends it that way or not. Every check-in, every invitation, every small connection point carries a hidden agenda — get them back in the seat — and people are remarkably good at sensing when care has an agenda attached to it. A Sometimer who feels like a project to be solved rather than a person to be known will feel that, even if the church never says it out loud. The goal of this section was never attendance for its own sake. It's genuine ministry to a real person, wherever they currently are — and if that person never becomes a Regular Attender again, they are still worth truly seeing, truly knowing, and truly caring for.
What "Meeting Them Where They Are" Actually Means
This phrase gets used often enough in ministry that it's worth defining precisely, because it's easy to say without actually practicing it. Meeting someone where they are means engaging with their actual current life — their real schedule, their real struggles, their real season — rather than engaging with the version of them your church wishes existed, the one who shows up every week and fits neatly into existing programs.
For a Competing Priorities Sometimer, meeting them where they are might mean genuinely engaging with whatever's currently taking their attention, rather than treating it as a rival to be defeated. If work is consuming their life right now, ask about the work, not just about church. If a hobby has become a major part of their identity, show real interest in it rather than quietly resenting it as competition. This isn't strategy in disguise — it's the actual posture of caring about a whole person rather than only the sliver of them that shows up on Sunday.
For a Genuine Obstruction Sometimer, meeting them where they are means letting go of any lingering expectation that they should be attending more than their circumstances allow, and instead asking what ministry actually looks like inside the constraints they're living with. Maybe that's a phone call during a night shift break. Maybe it's showing up at a hospital waiting room during a caregiving season. Maybe it's simply treating a text conversation as real pastoral care, not a lesser substitute for the "real" thing happening in the building.
Ways to Actually Minister to Someone Where They Are
Ask about their life before asking about their attendance. A conversation that starts with genuine curiosity about what's happening in someone's world — not as a lead-in to discussing why they haven't been around — signals that they matter independent of the pattern on an attendance sheet.
Bring ministry to their actual location and schedule. A prayer over the phone during a break. A meal dropped off during a hard week. A short visit timed around their availability rather than the church's calendar. Ministry doesn't require the building; it requires presence, in whatever form fits their life.
Celebrate what they're doing well, wherever they are. A Sometimer juggling a demanding job or caring for a sick parent is often stewarding something genuinely difficult, and that deserves real acknowledgment — not as a consolation prize for missing church, but as recognition of faithfulness happening in a different arena.
Let go of the comparison to Regular Attenders. Stop measuring a Sometimer's spiritual life against the standard of someone who's present every week. Their journey, their capacity, and their season are their own — and holding them to a different person's rhythm is a fast way to make care feel like judgment.
Offer small, real spiritual content that doesn't require a building. A short devotional sent personally. A specific verse or prayer tied to something they're actually facing. A recorded message shared with a note that says "this made me think of you," not a mass distribution list.
Build standing virtual touchpoints that fit their actual schedule. A weekly "Lunch and Learn" where a pastor or leader hosts a short, informal Bible study or open conversation over video during a midday break is a good example of this — it asks almost nothing of someone's calendar, it can be joined from a work break room or a parked car, and it puts them in genuine relational and spiritual contact with a leader without requiring a single evening or weekend commitment. The format matters less than the principle behind it: build a recurring, low-barrier virtual on-ramp timed to when Sometimers can actually be present, rather than only offering virtual access to events built around the in-person crowd's schedule.
Changing the Church's Perspective
This lesson asks something harder than a set of tactics — it asks leadership to genuinely re-examine how Sometimers are talked about internally. If staff meetings and volunteer conversations refer to Sometimers primarily as a retention problem, a list to be worked, or a gap to be closed, that framing will leak into every interaction, no matter how warm the individual words are. People can tell the difference between being cared for and being managed.
The shift this section is asking for is a shift from asking "how do we get them back" to asking "how do we love this specific person well, right now, wherever they are." That's not a softer standard — in some ways it's a harder one, because it can't be satisfied by a rising attendance number. It's satisfied only by the person actually being known, actually being cared for, and actually experiencing the church as present in their life, regardless of what that life currently allows. The strategies from the last two lessons remain useful — but only when they flow from this posture, not as a replacement for it.
Exercise:
Have one conversation this week with a Sometimer that doesn't mention church attendance at all — just genuine interest in their actual life.
Listen for the language in your own leadership meetings. Notice whether Sometimers are discussed as people or as a metric, and name it if it's the latter.
Bring ministry to someone's actual circumstances — a call, a visit, a meal — timed around their life, not the church calendar.
Acknowledge one thing a Sometimer is doing well outside of church — their work, their caregiving, their parenting — without tying it back to an invitation.
Pilot one standing virtual touchpoint, such as a pastor-led "Lunch and Learn" over video during a weekday midday hour, and personally invite several Sometimers who'd never make it to an evening or weekend event.
Ask yourself honestly: if this person never attends more than they currently do, would your church still be committed to genuinely knowing and caring for them? Write down your honest answer.
