Sometimes I wonder if in the big rush to be “missional” that some churches forget the attractional side of their main event – the worship service on Sunday.
But, for many churches, that Sunday event is not something that will be going away or be done away with. It’s not an either or proposition.
Rather, the question for this series is how to utilize the Sunday morning worship service to lead congregational evangelism?
4. Schedule regular big events or launch a series with a big event.
One popular form of congregational evangelism is personal invitations related to a big event or new sermon series.
This was #6 in the article 7 Ways to Encourage Congregational Evangelism.
The basic idea is to use a preaching series to
- draw a crowd,
- help some of them connect,
- and some will stay and explore their own faith and find faith in Christ.
It’s attractional evangelism centered around the preaching of the word and the weekend worship event.
“It’s easier than getting people to an evangelism conference.”
Many people are more comfortable inviting people to church rather than talking about their own faith (Read: Grow from Witness to Evangelist).
Using events like the launch of a preaching series will help people participate in the work of evangelism is a way that they can easily contribute.
- They can distribute invitation cards.
- They can invite people they personally know.
- They can be in prayer for the weeks ahead of time.
Here is our example:
For example, in about five weeks, our own church will launch a 6 week preaching series.
To do so, we are currently designing
- Invitation cards (business cards current members can give away). See Business Card Outreach Idea for Church Members for a generic idea.
- Newspaper and Radio ads on secular stations.
- Themed postcards as giveaways that people can use as a tool.
- We ask our current members for special offerings specifically for this event.
We are also growing a passion in our congregation to increase the number of invitations.
- Inviting people to make a list of unchurched friends.
- Pray for that list for 20 minutes a day during the 2 weeks leading up to the launch. (Read: Ten Prayer Points For your Friends)
- Some are called to fast in addition to prayer.
- Invite the families on that list to the launch day.
The sequence of events leading up to launch builds
- momentum,
- expectation, and
- a greater willingness to invite others to church.
Our lead pastor takes a few minutes each week to remind people the launch is coming, cast some vision about it’s potential impact, and the buzz is building.
New Christians who don’t yet know how to share their faith know at least how to invite people to church.
Along with launching a new series, give your current hospitality ministries a good look-over to see what needs sprucing up or tightening up.
The launch time for a new series can be an excellent time to do a regular review of how well your greeter ministry runs, how friendly your church is, and cast a renewed vision for hospitality.
Action:
- Look at your preaching plan for the next quarter.
- Is there a series launch you can plan?
- Define your series,
- Set your launch date, and then
- Work backwards to define milestones for marketing and momentum building steps.
- Read
Stay tuned for the last part in our series, 5 Ways a Pastor can raise the Evangelistic Temperature of the Congregation.
How Pastors Lead Congregational Evangelism #3
[…] you are launching some big event like a sermon series that is designed to increase the number of first time visitors, you might want to do one a few […]