Evangelism Coach

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Some churches play hard to get!

• Websites don’t list any contact information
• Worship Service times are not on the telephone responder,
• Service hours are not on on a sign near the front door or on the road.

Here is one low-cost idea that you can use to help advertise your church and raise awareness in the community.

Print up business cards that are about the church — not a person or the pastor, but about the church.

Include items like service times, a phone number for the office, maybe a map, your website. 

Print them by the thousands for your members to give away.  My church in Richmond did this and I was giving away several each week or so to people that I’d see in line, customer service people in fast food joints, or people standing around pumping their gas.

Here is a sample from my church in Richmond.

• It features the church name.
• Worship times.
• And a map.

The back contains phone numbers and website information.

You can print these by the thousands for your members to give away.

People may not be comfortable talking about their faith, but many are excited to invite people to church.  This gives you a tool to put in the hands of your members to help them invite others.

Let me ask you this?

What kinds of invitation tools do you use?

Every now and then, we lift up an article on welcoming visitors.  It’s not evangelism as we define evangelism here, but it is part of the responsibility of the church to welcome those that God draws to your church so that the gospel can be heard, seen, or felt.  (See Avoiding First Time Visitor Nightmares, our hospitality to visitors series, Church Hospitality Assessment, or see the category of visitors)

A few years ago attended a seminar dinner on How to Minister to Visitors at the local church and we learned some great ideas that are worth sharing here.

Perhaps these can help you minister to the people God brings to your church through your invitation or through His own sovereign means.

Miracles disguised as needs.

When unchurched visitors come to church, it is highly likely that they are looking for God to do something in their life.

Our speaker challenged us to look at our visitors as “miracles disguised as needs.”

A different meet and greet.   Take the Risk and Pray.

After introducing ourselves with a simple “I’ve not met you yet, my name is . . . . .” and finding out a little about them, we can simply ask “Is there something we can pray for before you go?”

Or, they may have already shared some of their needs and you can say “Let’s pray about some of those needs right now,” and then plunge right in and pray with them, leaving it up to God to work sovereignly.

Your prayer doesn’t have to be elaborate or drawn out, but a simple lifting of the person’s needs to the Lord.

This communicates a few things: care and compassion for the visitor, demonstrates our reliance upon God, and possibly reflects the “culture” of your church.

If our visitor sees an answer to prayer in the course of time, God might use that to draw that person or family closer to him. This is really a process of listening evangelism, and trusting in the power of God for daily living.  You’re not really “selling our church” or actively recruiting people.

We’re simply partnering with them and taking them before the Lord.

After a time of prayer, if its appropriate, spend some time introducing the visitor to other people, and then if they return in the following week or two, welcome them again and continue to communicate care and concern. See how God worked in response to prayer and see what happens.

Simply put, this idea is really simple to implement.

What does it take for you to participate?

• It takes a vision for seeing guests for who they are - people who might be in need.
• It takes a willingness to go beyond our natural awkwardness and introduce ourselves to strangers.
• It takes patience to listen to their story and to listen for their needs, and a risk to lift them before the Lord in prayer.

This is a form of outreach that uses hospitality and prayer to bless those who come to your for their first time.

Sounds simple, but I think you’ll find it an adventure.

Mark Driscoll on video explaining the various themes on the Emerging Church. I find this a helpful summary of the ongoing conversation and a fair critique of it.

The Jolly blogger asks: “Why are church plants the most successful at reaching people and does my established church stand any chance of being renewed?”

Five ways to sharpen you evangelistic skills.

A pastor’s conversational encounter in a cafe. Get out of the office my friend and see who you run into.

Take a risk and pray. From a slide show on evangelism full of quotes from books.

Check out this quote on authentic Evangelism at Pentecostal Post-it Notes:

Quote on Conversational Evangelism:

“Actual conversations with other human beings rarely follow a script. So resolve now to be OK with interruptions, awkward pauses, rabbit trails, and even bursts of anger. Keep your agenda to love, but drop your agenda for how the conversation has to play out.” – Walter Henegar Evangelism for Dummies: The surprising gift of stating the obvious.

 

 

Next week, I’ll be teaching on Evangelism in Panama at the Youth with a Mission Base.  Pray for the work there.

This weekend, I’ll be preaching 3 services at Centro Cristiano Betania in Panama City.  If you are not in church on Sunday, you can listen to the live stream at http://www.stereoferadio.com/ at 8.30CT or 11:00CT.

Have a great weekend.

 

 

From the traffic reports on this site, the Series on Hospitality has been the most searched after material. I’ve complied the entire series here.

Back to Basics in Church Evangelism
Hospitality is a piece of evangelism
What’s your sign? (Do your signs help or hinder?)
Poor Word Choice (One sign that just doesn’t read right).
Hospitality and Evangelism (The story of our welcome to our church).
Welcome a Spanish speaking Visitor
How not to welcome a visitor
No One Said Hello
I can’t silence the pain.
I want to feel Jesus
Six Hints for welcoming Visitors

I’ve been doing some writing and thinking about helping the church become visitor friendly. A list of related articles is below.

Hospitality is only a part of church based evangelism.

I just read a timely article about this in Net Results Magazine’s September/October 2007 Issue. Bill Easum writes “Back to Basics,” calling on church leaders to get back to the great commission and the great commandment.

In returning to the Great Commandment, he exhorts congregations about the need to return to the basic ministry of loving one another, to become an “incubator of faith where non Christians and new Christians experience a warm, loving, and accepting group of people.”

• Is your church friendly toward the visitor?
• Is your church friendly towards the pastor?
• Or is your church full of strife, division, and run by a control freak?

If your church is not an incubator of faith, perhaps its time to show the controllers and bullies to the door, says Easum.

In returning to the Great Commission, Easum reminds the church to return to the basic ministry of reaching out to the stranger. He offers practical steps for pastors to help keep this in front of the congregation.

His steps:
1. Read the series “My First Six Months as a Pastor”

1. Part one.
2. Part two.
3. Part three.
4. Part four.
5. Part five.
6. Part six.
7. Part seven.

2. Read “Why People Don’t Invite People to Church.” [A recent EvangelismCoach.org post on this is here].
3. Host some “Taste and See Events”
4. Figure out how to spend at least 10% of annual income on ministries focused on unchurched people. Here is a list of ways to connect.

Other Hospitality Posts
Hospitality is a piece of evangelism
What’s your sign? (Do your signs help or hinder?)
Poor Word Choice (One sign that just doesn’t read right).
Hospitality and Evangelism (The story of our welcome to our church).
Welcome a Spanish speaking Visitor
How not to welcome a visitor
No One Said Hello
I can’t silence the pain.
I want to feel Jesus
Six Hints for welcoming Visitors