Adventism Doesn’t Need More Converts… It Needs Healthier Ones

I left paid pastoral ministry back in 2023. Since then, I built my own digital marketing business working with entrepeneurs and companies who want to get more customers and make more sales. And while the marketing world is complex, there is one foundational rule that governs the way effective marketing operates: Don’t attract more people. Attract the right people.

In other words, it makes no difference if a website I built gets my client a million visitors. If none of them buy, stay, or tell a friend those numbers are pointless. Good marketing prefers to bring one thousand visitors and see one hundred become delighted customers, rather than 1 million window shoppers. Because the goal isn’t more people. The goal is the right people.

But even if they buy, the wrong people are never fun for a business owner. These mismatched customers often means more complaints, more cancellations, more returns, and more headaches. The right customers mean more excitement, richer conversations, and a business that actually feels joyful to build.

So then, how do you ensure that you get more of the right people and less of the wrong ones? It’s all about your message. The message you use determines the people you gather.

You know where this is headed…

For years, the SDA church has used a style of promotion that certainly fills rooms. But the question isn’t “Did more people show up?” The question is “Did we gather the right people?”

Matthew Lucio tells a story about an Adventist evangelist who was a master at marketing the message with hype and fear. In one sermon he teased the next night by promising to reveal the names of five local pastors who weren’t going to heaven.* It worked. The hall was full. But ask yourself: who did that message attract? Relationship-focused, curious, emotionally regulated seekers looking for a faith that heals the world? Or conspiracy-hungry, gossip-loving, emotionally dysregulated folks looking for a religion they can use to judge and control others?

Don’t get me wrong. The gospel is for everybody. The issue isn’t that emotionally disregulated people turn up. The issue is that this evangelistic marketing tactic exploits their instabilities for more baptisms. It doesn’t offer healing. It just feeds the toxicity in return for sexy baptismal reports.

And while there are modern evangelists who reject this fear based approach, its no secret that much of our church messaging has leaned on fear, us-versus-them, conspiracies, and attacks. This approach spikes attendance, but it comes at a price. It draws people who are not searching for connection, beauty, wonder, or a faith that heals. It pulls in people who love to argue, dominate, and condemn. Then, to borrow Jesus’ own blunt words, we turn them into “twice the sons of hell,” and they become the nucleus of our boards and congregations.

And we wonder why pastoral burnout is at an all-time high. Why youth can’t leave fast enough. Why secular neighbors have zero interest in our message. Why the same dramas replay with the same personalities in meeting after meeting. It’s because of the magnet. Communities are formed by the message that gathers them.

Here’s the hard part: Once a community is baked in this mentality, changing it from the inside is nearly impossible. These folks were promised a church that fed their thirst for domination, sensationalism, and control. Threatening to take that away from them with a more “Christ-centred, relationship focused, community service” approach only riles them up. And very few pastors/ administrators have the capacity to endure the abuse that follows.

So how do we fix it?

We change the magnet.

No, this isn’t an overnight fix. It’s not even a fix that will work in the next year, or the next five. But it is a fix that will change the trajectory of our movement by inspiring a new generation of believers who go on to form new churches and new cultures. And the key is to change the magnet. In other words, we need a new message that attracts a different audience—a relational, wonder-filled, community-centered people who hunger for a faith that heals rather than harms. Then we need to build new spaces, new churches, and new movements with them.

Practically, that looks like this:

1. Clarify exactly who you’re for. Name your people out loud: the curious secular neighbor, the de-churched millennial, the Gen Z skeptic who still longs for meaning. Stop writing for “everyone.” Start serving someone.

2. Drop fear as a growth strategy. If your hook requires slander, shame, or sensationalism, it’s the wrong hook. Fear grows fast—and rots faster.

3. Lead with beauty, honesty, and usefulness. Invite people into practices that make life better now: Sabbath as rest from burnout. Hospitality against isolation. Generosity against scarcity.

4. Tell a better story. Not “us vs. them,” but “us for them.” A community learning to love neighbors, seek justice, and walk humbly.

5. Measure the right things. Attendance is the noisiest metric. Track belonging, participation, next steps, and fruit. Depth over breadth. Formation over spectacle.

6. Create on-ramps for emotionally healthy seekers. Design gatherings where thoughtful people feel at home: slow Scripture, shared meals, service projects that meet real, felt needs in your city.

7. Protect the culture you’re building. Set values, expectations, and boundaries with your leaders. Enforce them with kindness and clarity. Say no to behaviors that poison the well—even if it costs headcount. And don’t open the doors to just anyone. Toxic folk love latching onto new communities because they are easy prey. Develop simple structures to keep the wolves far away.

A small, faithful community gathered by a relational message centred on healing the world is worth more than a thousand members stirred up by beasts, conspiracies, and tantalizing doom-and-gloom.

The key is simple: Right people over more people.

Let’s get to work!

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*Lucio, Matthew J. “Evangelistic Clickbait: Roy Allan Anderson and an Art Credited Only to Hollywood”, (Accessed online: https://www.adventisthistorypodcast.org/post/evangelistic-clickbait)