There’s a story in The Human Element by Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal about a company that created an online platform where customers could design their own custom couch. The idea was especially appealing to people living in urban apartments who needed furniture specifically designed to fit the unique size and layout of their space.
The response was strong. Thousands of people visited the site and designed couches to fit exactly what they needed. All the indicators suggested significant interest, except for one fairly important one: very few people were actually buying the couches they designed.
Initially, the company assumed the problem was the product. Maybe the couches were too expensive or customers weren’t convinced of the quality. But as they looked more closely, they discovered the primary barrier had very little to do with the new couch, but instead something to do with another couch.
People who designed their custom couch often did not order it because they didn’t know what to do with the old couch they already had.
For someone living in a small apartment, buying a new couch meant first figuring out how to get rid of the old one. There wasn’t room for both, and removing a large piece of furniture could be a significant hassle in an urban context. So the company began offering to remove the old couch when they delivered the new one, and purchasing behavior changed. People started buying their couch!
It’s not that customers suddenly wanted the new couch more. It’s that they felt like something was making it difficult for them to act on a desire they already had. They needed someone to help them move the couch.
Moving the couch in church engagement
That story has become one of the most helpful ways for me to think about church engagement because, for years, I assumed that when churches weren’t engaging, the primary issue was motivation. If pastors understood the need more clearly, they would engage. If churches could see the urgency, they would respond. So when movement felt slow, my instinct was to compel and appeal through another story, statistic or passionate plea.
There are certainly times when those things are necessary, but the longer I’ve worked alongside churches and ministry leaders, the more I’ve come to believe that a lack of motivation is often not the primary problem.
Most pastors I meet already believe God cares deeply about vulnerable children and families, and they believe the Church has a meaningful role to play. Yet even with that conviction in place, movement can still be difficult. Why?
Because while they are motivated to care there’s often something, or a set of somethings, acting as barriers preventing them from moving forward.
Fuel and friction
The story of the couch illustrates two important dynamics always at play in human engagement and motivation: fuel and friction.
Fuel increases our desire to move toward something, adopt new ideas or do something potentially risky or costly. Friction is whatever makes that movement harder.
Because friction is often less visible than motivation, it can be easy to misinterpret what is actually happening. A pastor doesn’t respond to an email, a church chooses not to move forward or someone tells us, “This just isn’t the right season,” and we assume they need more convincing. So we add more fuel to a situation that may already have plenty of it.
Perhaps what they really need is someone to help them move their old couch.
I remember feeling this from the other side when I was pastoring. There was no shortage of organizations that wanted to partner with our church, and nearly all of them were doing meaningful work. What they couldn’t always see was everything else sitting on my side of the table.
I wasn’t trying to decide whether their work mattered. I was trying to determine how their opportunity fit within everything else God had entrusted to our church. We had limited resources, attention and capacity, along with a particular vision we believed God had given us to steward. Sometimes we cared deeply and still had to say no. Not because we didn’t care but because we had a whole living room of other couches we were trying to figure out how to handle well.
Identifying friction for churches
That is why one of the most important skills in church engagement is learning to recognize the friction beneath what we can see on the surface.
A pastor might say, “We’re too busy right now,” when what they mean is that their people are exhausted and they cannot imagine introducing another initiative. “We tried something like this before” may carry the weight of a disappointing experience that has made them cautious about trying again.
The same is true with individuals. I’ve heard people considering foster care say, “I’m afraid I’ll get too attached.” But attachment may not be the thing they’re most afraid of. What sits underneath it is often the potential for experiencing grief in a hard goodbye. They are imagining loving a child, watching that child leave and wondering whether they could handle the loss. It has nothing to do with attachment. The couch is more about grief, and forecasting whether or not they have the ability to handle it is what is holding them back. That’s the couch that needs to be moved.
If we only respond to the thing being said, we may never get to the thing that is actually keeping someone from moving.
When fuel can backfire
This is where more fuel can actually begin to feel like pressure. A pastor who already cares may not need another statistic about foster care. They may need help seeing that they already have ministries and mechanisms they can use to support vulnerable children and families and it likely won’t require starting another church program. Someone considering foster care may not need another emotional story. They may need a safe place to talk honestly about grief, the impact on their family or whether they have what it takes to do this well.
The work, then, requires listening long enough to understand what sits underneath the initial answer. Sometimes the friction is practical. Sometimes it is emotional. Sometimes people simply assume the only meaningful way to participate requires more than they have to give.
These are the couches we need to help people move.
Serving churches by removing friction
There will always be a place for fuel. We should tell compelling stories, communicate the need clearly and cast a vision for what is possible.
But we also need to recognize when the issue is friction, not motivation. Our job then shifts. It’s no longer about just convincing people to be more motivated but rather about helping them identify, name and move the couch they feel like is standing in their way.
