Invite Your Friends to Church: 10 Ways to Pray For Those Invitations

I happen to catch a listen on the radio this week of how author and apologist Lee Strobel became a Christian.

Part of his journey to faith was accepting an invitation to church.

At church, he heard Christianity explained to him with such clarity that it started his thorough investigation into the Christian faith.

I found myself thinking:

How do unchurched people find their way into a church?

It usually starts because a friend invites them.

A church invite is an evangelistic activity

There are certain times when people are more open to responding to a church invite than other times in their life.

The best invitations to church will come from family and friends, but you might run into a complete stranger and still invite them to your church.

When all is well and life is smooth, there is little perceived need.

But when great changes come, there is a greater openness to receiving an invitation to church.

Giving a church invite is evangelistic activity that nearly everyone can do.

An invitation to church was one of the many factors that brought Lee Strobel to a saving faith in Christ.

Pray for your invitations

Recently, I listened to Church Talk Radio and they had a brief 5 minute segment on praying your work in inviting people to church.  I added the last four.

1. Pray for your potential Guests (see How to Make a Prayer List of Friends)
2. Pray for the opportunity to arise to invite them to Church
3. Pray for awareness of their need (See What is Spiritual Thirst?)
4. Pray for awareness of the opportunity
5. Pray for the courage to invite them to church.
6. Pray for favor that they would accept the invitation.
7. Pray they would follow through and come.
8. Pray that your church would welcome them.
9. Pray that the message and worship would be awe-inspiring (See 2 Things Grow a Church)
10. Pray that they would hear the message and grow one step closer to God.

Invite a friend to church

What might be the clue that will allow you to invite someone to church and not get rejected?

Listen for one of these three “Nots.” (Thanks, Andy Stanley)

1. When you ask “how’s it going?” and they reply “Not going Well”
2. When you hear: “I was not ready for xxxxx, I am not prepared / that was not expected”
3. When you hear: “I’m not from here.”

Each phrase may indicate an openness or willingness to attend church to hear the good news of Jesus.

I expound more upon this here: Invite a friend to church without fear of rejection.

Is it a risk to invite your friend to your church?

In some cases, church members feel like it is a risk to invite their friends to church.

• Will they be safe?
• Will they be stalked by a desperate hospitality committee?
• Will they be welcomed by church greeters with a firm handshake and a smile?
• Will other church members take the initiative and introduce themselves to my friend?
• Will my friend walk away from this experience with a positive impression of the church that means so much to me?

Maybe it’s time to review your welcome process to help minimize the sense of risk your church members might feel in inviting their friends to church.

Coaching Corner

1. Who can you personally invite to church this week?  Take a few minutes and pray for them.
2. What makes you hesitant to invite a friend?
3. You do have someone to invite, right?

A Starter Resource

In this 70 minute audio, I cover 4 evangelistic activities.  Giving an invite to church is one of them.

If you are comfortable doing that, where can you grow next?

Purchase the download copy of my teaching “Simple Steps to Personal Evangelism.”

In this 70 minute MP3 AUDIO recording on personal evangelism you will learn:

• How church invitations are part of evangelism
• How to discover and share your own journey to faith
• What you can say about the gospel message.
• How to personally lead someone to faith in Christ.

It’s a 70 minute audio file that takes just a few minutes to download, but it may help you answer the question:

What can you do in the next 90 days to grow in your evangelism skills?