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How to Pray for Your Neighbor’s Salvation

I recently got new neighbors.  They moved in across the way.

I know very little about them at the moment, other than they are Jewish.

At least, that is my best guess based on the mezuzah that is on their door frame.  I am told that the mezuzah holds a small paper scroll with the words of the Shema prayer written on it in Hebrew.  Mezuzahs fulfill the command to keep the laws of God on the doorposts of our homes, and I’ve seen family members touch it each time they walk into their house.

I doubt my first greeting with them will be to talk about Jesus.

But I can begin to pray for them before I have a chance to know them personally.

How can you pray for your neighbors?

How to Pray for Neighbors Salvation

I know there are many different prayer strategies in personal evangelism (listen to this one), such as this one from Colossians 4:3-4

  • “Lord, Open a door.”
  • “Lord, open their heart.”
  • “Lord, open my mouth.”

When I last got new neighbors in 2011, here is what shaped my prayer for my new neighbors.  We are praying along these lines:

  1. That we’d find common ground with our new neighbors
  2. That we’d build a genuine and authentic relationship.
  3. That we’d be part of God’s work in bringing them to Christ.
  4. That if they don’t have a church, that they would become part of ours.
  5. That we’d get to invite them to our church.
  6. That God would draw them to Jesus if that hasn’t happened yet.

Due to the course of life events in both our families, we moved and they moved before we ever had a meal together.

As I step into a new seasons of praying for new neighbors, here are some ideas that are fueling me.

1.  Pray for passion to share the good news

I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s  driving passion to share the good news, as spelled out in 1 Corinthians 9:16-23.

For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!  If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me.  What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law),so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

2.  Pray that God would give you divine appointments

Earlier in the Corinthian letter, Paul wrote:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. (1 Corinthians 3:5)

Paul reminded the Corinthians about how they made their journey to faith over time through various conversational encounters.

Each of those conversational encounters were divine appointments, those prompting a moment that will impact someone’s life in their journey to faith.  I want to give you examples of how this can play out in real life.

Pray for more divine appointments with your neighbor.

3.  Pray that God will keep those neighbors before you.

Your neighbors are not just a nameless class of irrelgious people.

They are not simply “the unsaved.”  Rather, they are individuals with names, stories, hopes, dreams.  They are people that you can grow to love and serve.

You could pray that seeing your neighbors will become a trigger that will prompt you to pray,

Lord use me to share the love of Christ with them.

Lord, use me to invite them to church.

Pray that God would give you the opportunity to invite someone to church this coming weekend.

4.  Pray that you’ll receive the Father’s heart of love.

It’ll be easy to get annoyed with your neighbors when they won’t cut their tree limbs back, or when their dog continues to do its business on your yard.

It’ll become easy to ignore your neighbor if you never interact with them.

It’ll become easy to forget about their spiritual condition once you have spent a good amount of time with them.

Instead of letting business as usual develop, ask the Lord to give you His heart of love for those who don’t know him.

Ask regularly, ask plainly, and ask with great passion.

Ask the Lord for that same compassion Jesus felt that day outside of Jerusalem.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”  (Matthew 9:36-38)

5.  Pray that you’ll discern their spiritual thirst.

As you pray regularly for your neighbor, you’ll begin to see what the Spirit of God is doing in their life.

You’ll begin to see their spiritual thirst.

Recently, I went on a charter fishing expedition.  The captain looked for clues as we drove to the fishing spots – birds feeding on bait fish.  The birds showed the captain where the small bait fish were swimming near the surface and that was the clue to the likely presence of the bigger fish we would catch.

Spiritual thirst is that clue that will begin to give you a hint of the spiritual hunger that is just below the surface.

In the way I teach personal evangelism, this thirst is what God uses to draw people to himself.  Jesus said:

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” (John 7:37b)

Jesus plainly taught that if anyone wants a relationship with God, it can be obtained.

But notice that this claim to a relationship is specifically addressed only to those who are spiritually thirsty.

Pray that you’ll begin to see it.

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field
“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

I pray for my neighbors.  Will you pray for yours?

Here is the coaching corner.

Are you praying regularly for your neighbors?

Maybe it is time to make a prayer list of every neighbor in your apartment building, condo complex, or cul-de-sac.

Write down their names and set apart time in your devotional times to pray for them.

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Book Review: Offer Them Life

Dan DunnHaving read a steady diet of popular church growth books, Dan Dunn’s Offer Them Life: A Life-Based Evangelistic Vision is different academic challenge.

It is not a book to consume in one sitting, but a great book for those who want to think deeply on the biblical theme of Life.

I love Dan’s passion for evangelism and it clearly shows through the book with a mix of scholarly wrestling plus how to make such insights available in practice.  Dan’s cross cultural missions experience (a passion that I share personally) gives him tremendous insight into his study.

This book requires deep thought and this was a welcome refresher in an age of “theology lite” books I’ve read the last few years.

Reading it felt like an appropriate return to seminary.  For me, that was a timely challenge that I appreciated.

Dan has made the effort to survey the scholarship and to synthesize their thoughts plus his own surrounding the biblical metaphor of life.

I appreciated Dunn’s scholarly approach.  Rather than reduce the gospel to 3 propositional statements, Dunn looks throughout the scriptures at the theme of Life.  He takes well-developed steps to map out a comprehensive picture of this metaphor throughout Scripture to show the centrality of this message in Scripture. 

His thoughts would serve missionaries, pastors, and evangelism trainers like myself as they prepare their evangelism habits and teaching materials.

Main points of Offer Them Life

DanDunnThese are the two most important points:

1. A solid case can be made that “full, vibrant life” is the central theme of the Bible.

This is therefore what God calls us to enjoy in relationship with God, others, and creation.  It is not only eternal life, but a full and meaningful life as one lives out God’s purpose and plan for which we have been created.

2.  Portraying the full vibrant life that God intends to non-Christians is a central element of evangelism.

This what we should be inviting non-Christians toward.  Sure, the offer of salvation includes forgiveness of sin, but it also includes the offer of “abundant life” here and now.

We should not stop using other biblical/theological language, such as redemption, forgiveness, salvation.

Dunn only asks that we add full life oriented imagery and vocabulary to our theological/biblical understandings and also our evangelistic communication.

Quotes I liked:

  • Two perspectives underlie the current practice of evangelism in the U.S. American context. The first is one’s understanding of eternal life. The second is basing evangelism on the concept of kingdom.
  • Christians, therefore, must continually discern ways of thinking about and practicing evangelism that honor the strong biblical theme that God wants God’s created humanity to experience life fully (abundantly, according to John 10:10), on this earth, prior to physical death.
  • When evangelism deals with sin, for example, mutual emphasis could be given to the life-forever benefits of being forgiven through Christ (e.g., access to heaven) and to the life-now benefits of Christ’s forgiveness (e.g., freedom from bondage)
  • These examples serve to illustrate that a great deal of material has been written on the theme of the already and not-yet character of the kingdom’s fulfillment. For my purposes, the most important factor to note is how the tension between the already and not-yet dimensions of kingdom fulfillment relates to the biblical theme of life, and then consequently how this relates to the theory and practice of evangelism
  • I would now like to introduce a related yet different concept for you to consider: that we frame the relationship between life and kingdom in reference to ultimate goal or purpose, as distinct from the instruments or means that lead to that ultimate goal or purpose.
  • Thus, Jesus’s primary goal in announcing the kingdom and inviting people to respond to it was not so that they could be counted as citizens of the kingdom for the sake of the king or the kingdom, but for their own sake, because it is through submission to the rule of King Jesus that they would receive new life in him.
  • If creation of and participation in life was God’s original intention for creation, then God’s intention in Jesus is a restoration and re-creation of that same life: teeming, fertile, abundant, and good. This directly and powerfully impacts the theory and practice of evangelism, for it helps shape our understandings of what we are offering in our communication of the good news
  • Evangelism begins with God, but God also intends, invites, and desires that God’s people be active participants in the evangelization process. The Scriptures vividly portray that God’s plan for calling God’s fallen creation back to God’s self includes people as integral ministry partners in this work. From the calling of Abraham to be a blessing to all the families of the earth, to young Mary giving birth to the Son, to the early disciples leading thousands of people to Christ—the Bible makes it clear that God wants to communicate the possibility of new life in Jesus to people through people. Therefore, though evangelism begins with God and is utterly dependent on God, God also envisions a vital role for Christians. Without question, God is the sole source of new life in Christ. However, this does not automatically mean that God is the sole agent in the process that leads us to this new life. God’s sovereignty in evangelism does not cancel out God’s intention for us to be used as God’s agents in evangelism. Rather, it is in God’s sovereignty that God has chosen us as God’s agents.
  • How, therefore, can we portray (and invite persons to) an experience of full life in Jesus that appropriately calls them to center that experience in their commitment to and relationship with God?
  • The answer is, yes, there is very good news for life now, and evangelistic theory and practice must make this a primary emphasis
  • In whatever way we may choose to include the possibility of new life in Christ in our evangelistic vision and ministry, we must include references to experiencing positive benefits in this life, if we want to resonate well with non-believers
  • This is the essential point I am making in relation to creation as the starting point for an evangelistic vision grounded in the biblical theme of life. We begin with God’s good and positive intentions. This provides a more appropriate biblical and theological foundation for theology and evangelism.

This reviewer said it best:

Dr. Dan Dunn has done what few can do. He has written a very academic and scholarly treatise delivered in a language we all can understand. His brilliant mind, disciplined academic pursuit and passion for helping others find life in following Christ has resulted in a book every Christian worker should include in their library, not as another dusty tome, but as a pattern for their life and ministry of evangelism. Every theological school which hopes to actually equip their graduates to do the work of the ministry should include this book in their curriculum.

Dan is a personal friend of mine and I have taught with him in the seminary he has founded in Venezuela.

I have gotten to know him over the last few years as we share passions for personal evangelism and a profound love for Latin America.

Even if I didn’t know Dan personally, I’d still recommend this book for your academic reading.  Let it impact how you practice evangelism.

Order your copy

Order your copy of Offer Them Life: A Life-Based Evangelistic Vision Amazon.  I will receive a small commission.

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Why your small church should have a reception after your service

I was an associate pastor in a small church.  We had to carefully manage every dime received through the offering plate.

During lean seasons, we had to question every expense in the budget.

Sometimes we’d question the value of spending money on coffee and snacks after the morning service.  Our pastor prided himself on his thrifty Scottish heritage and often looked for ways to not spend money if there was no value received.

Should our church have spent precious gifts from our members on little food items to have  a small fellowship time after church?

Was it worth the effort to buy napkins, cups, plates?

Did making coffee make any difference?

Did the pastry matter? [Read more…]

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Stuff I’m Reading for Inspiration, January 17 2014

Every now and then, I spend some time reading other thinkers and Christian bloggers that make me think, react, or comment.  These are some of my favorites this week.

Arminianism Didn’t Save Me! Me Neither

I had no clue about Arminianism when I was born again.  I had no clue about John Calvin or Martin Luther when the Lord was pleased to save me.  All I knew was that Jesus died for my sins, that He rose again, and that He was my Savior and Lord.  That was all I knew.

. . . .

Oh friends, don’t worship a theological system.  Worship the Son of God!  Make Jesus your passion.  Don’t exalt a man above the Lord Jesus.  Exalt the Lord Jesus and make His name great!  Jesus came to ransom us from our sins (Mark 10:45) and His blood can wash away all our sins.

Read more from  @SeekingDisciple here: http://bit.ly/1drcKqO

Is Salvation a Matter of Urgency?

Miguel Labrador always has me thinking.  He a cross cultural missionary serving in South America who asks deep questions out of the work he does.  Here is a glimpse from an old post.

Urgency is imprudent when it:

  • Delivers a compromised Gospel message.
  • Creates an environment for insincere or ignorant “decisions.”
  • Uses emotional pleas to invoke a response.
  • Relies heavily on methodology and light on being all things to all people.
  • Places guilt on those who are not lead to reach out to specific people in specific times.

If Christ is the author and finisher of our faith,

then is there really any urgency in proclaiming the Gospel?.

Read more at http://bit.ly/1cXUiS4 By @Missionaries

Commitment is a very big word. Especially when it comes to sharing the Gospel.

I spoke about someone who once described it this way:

“Evangelism is the work of rescuing people from certain death. It is putting aside all fear and hesitance, knowing that we cannot stand by and watch people die without doing something to stop it.”(. Anon)

I am challenged by that statement and it made me examine my own commitment levels. Am I blinkered when it comes to sharing the good news? How do I view people that I come into contact with on a daily basis? Do I view them as souls either going to heaven or destined for a lost eternity? What if I don’t think about it and just get on with my day?

Read more from @gospelonetoone at http://bit.ly/1a9j5G0

6 Keys to Breaking the 200, 400 and 800 Attendance Barriers

This is a recurring post I keep returning to.  Carey is a great thinking and leader based on what I’ve read so far.

’m going to assume leaders are praying and that the church is biblical and authentic in its mission. I’ll also assume that leaders want to church to grow.

But even with all those conditions in place, too many churches just can’t push through.

And even once you get past 200, some churches can’t make it past 400 or 800.  Again, not for lack of desire or opportunity.

So why can’t they grow?

They simply haven’t structured for growth.

Read more from @cnieuwhof at  http://bit.ly/1cFg7ZQ

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The Sinners Prayer for the Person with a Christian Background

Fourteen months ago, my friend and I first got acquainted.  We have spent much time together during those 14 months getting to know one another.

When I first mentioned that I was a follower of Christ, the defensive wall went up.   He didn’t want to talk about spiritual things.

But as I continue to mention Christ my ordinary conversations, he has softened his hostility and moved to curiosity. [Read more…]

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Book Review: The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic Life

The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic LifeI am a big advocate of evangelism as a lifestyle.

When I read the book the Acts, I see how evangelism played out in the life of the apostles and early believers.  They spent time with people. They shared their faith, and the “Lord added daily” to their numbers.

How can a believer experience a lifestyle where evangelism occurs in the ordinary routine of life?

Doug Cecil has expounded on this question in The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic Life, without falling into the trap of teaching “witnessing without words.”

The principles Cecil maps out could help the ordinary believer find ways to incorporate evangelism during the ordinary course of life.

This is a practical and accessible book, not overly academic or dry.  As he goes through the book, Cecil is good at including appropriate stories and biblical references. The stories come from his own life.

The foundation of personal evangelism

Cecil starts recognizing that evangelism starts out of your own relationship with Jesus. (Principle 1).  Without nurturing your own relationship with Christ, you’ll lack any passion or motivation to share.

While he recognizes that there are different styles of evangelism, he confronts the copout “that’s not my style” and shows how each of us are called to share our faith, no matter what our preferred tendency is.  The section on the dynamics between the closeness of our relationship with people and what strategy we should adopt is very eye opening.  We should not ever have a reason to say “That’s not my style.”

Definition of Evangelism

Like many writers, he starts with defining evangelism.  Cecil clearly defines evangelism as the particular conversation where the gospel is shared.  For Cecil, evangelism is an event in the process of disciplemaking.

Evangelism is an event and not a process. We are to do the work of an evangelist. The definition of evangelism has two main parts: information and invitation. One part without the other is out of balance. One should not think of presenting an invitation without any information. And likewise, providing only the information without an invitation to trust Christ will leave the listener frustrated and still unsaved. After a person trusts Christ, instruction in the spiritual life starts the person down the road toward spiritual maturity

On the one hand, I agree with his definition of evangelism.  A strict biblical interpretation of meaning of evangelism would be the actual proclamation of the gospel.

On the other hand, I would see all the appropriate activity and conversations leading up to that particular moment as part of the evangelistic process as people walk through stages of their journey to Christ.  He would call that “witnessing.”  It’s a slight difference of nuance.

The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic Life. If you look to live out a lifestyle of personal evangelism, these Biblical principles will give you guidance.

The Seven Principles of an Evangelistic life

1. Keep Your Priorities Straight

There is a great commandment before there is a great commission. You may have the slickest method, the slickest presentation, and be the most silver-tongued person around; but if your relationship with Jesus Christ is out of focus, evangelism is out of balance.  (Location 276).

2. Evangelism is an Event in the Process of Disciplemaking

The people in the relational-strategy camp talk a lot about the cultivation and talk little about the harvest. The writers in the aggressive-strategy camp talk a lot about the harvest, but talk little about the cultivation. Normally a person has to choose between one of the two strategies. It seems to me that both are correct, if properly employed. We ought to target some sort of middle ground where we see the two united with such terms as cultivation, sowing, and harvesting. There is a proper time for cultivation, a proper time for sowing, and a proper time for harvesting (Location 496).

3. Make the gospel clear.

There are two main parts: (1) Christ died for our sins, and (2) He arose from the dead. Notice now that Paul supplies biblical evidence and also empirical evidence for each statement. The statement “Christ died for our sins” is followed by the biblical evidence, “according to the Scriptures.” And following the biblical evidence, Paul supplies the empirical evidence, “He was buried.” “He [also] was raised on the third day.” Again, Paul supplies both biblical evidence, “according to the Scriptures,” and empirical evidence, “He appeared.”

With both biblical and empirical evidence, Paul declares the Good News. The Gospel, the Good News, is: Christ died for my sins and arose from the dead. (Location 1005)

4. Evangelism is more spiritual than methodological.

The question in evangelism is not how you can get better equipped or find the newest and latest method of sharing the Good News. The main question in evangelism is, What’s holding you back? If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life, sharing Jesus Christ is a passion. This brings about the fourth principle of evangelism: Evangelism is more spiritual than it is methodological (Location 1297)

5. Being a good witness means passionately pursuing the lost in love.

Being a good witness is being salt and light in a tasteless and dark world by living by grace and truth. Being a witness is more involved in cultivating relationships and sowing seeds in the process of disciple making.  But being a witness is anything but being passive in life and not being involved with people. Being a witness is passionately pursuing the lost in love and being intimately involved with people. You are a witness for Jesus Christ because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your life. You are to do the work of an evangelist. You can be either a good witness for Jesus Christ or a poor witness for Jesus Christ, but one way or another you are a witness! (Location 1514)

6. Evangelism moves forward as God’s people get involved in ministry and service.

We were not created to be alone. We need each other. How can we harness the power that is found in the body of Christ to corporately reach out to a lost world around us? What are some of the things that we can do to reach out to the community? (Location 1963)

Here is another basic principle of evangelism. Evangelism moves forward as God’s people get involved in ministry and service. If I am able to get my people involved in service, and they give themselves away in ministry, evangelism will take care of itself. (Locations 2038)

7.  Disciple, nurture, and assimilate new believers into the church.

Follow-up is the process of establishing a believer in the faith. Notice two things about this definition. First, follow-up is a process and not just an event. We never arrive in follow-up. Secondly, the person being followed up may or may not be a new believer. There are a lot of people sitting in our pews who have never effectively been followed up. (Location 2723).

Each chapter has  relevant story of the principles involved, plus there are additional chapters that tease out

Slide Deck

Quotes I liked:

  • How we live serves as a foundation for evangelism, not as a substitute.
  • The greatest obstacle to [evangelism] is the church that is preoccupied with its own existence.
  • Being a witness is passionately pursuing the lost in love and being intimately involved with people.
  • Doing evangelism centers on proclaiming that Christ died for our sins and arose from the dead.
  • I believe that the Father’s heart is expressed in three ways: a concern for the world, a compassion for the lost, and a passion for reconciliation.
  • If you just feel compassion without showing mercy, then you really have not experienced biblical compassion.
  • Until the Gospel is actually presented, evangelism has not truly occurred. It is good to keep in mind that all relational strategies must become aggressive at some point; otherwise, that person is still lost.
  • You start by being a good witness for Jesus Christ. But what exactly is a good witness for Jesus Christ? Being a good witness is being salt and light in a tasteless and dark world by living by grace and truth.
  • An evangelistic personal testimony is a clear statement of your conversion with a Gospel presentation woven in

Other Reviews

Doug Cecil has done a tremendous service to the body of Christ in his newest book on evangelism.  His work is a must read for every Christian who wants to be used by God to expand the family of believers. – Keith Ferguson

Order your copy

Order your copy of The 7 Principles of an Evangelistic Life from Amazon.  I will receive a small commission.  Doug Cecil is the author.

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The Best of EvangelismCoach: 2013 Edition

Looking back over the past year, some particular blog posts rose to the top for 2013.

Please consider sharing this post, or some of these with other believers in your network.

The Evangelism Tips

2013Collage

1.  A Comparison of Multiple Evangelism Methods

Is it possible that one type of evangelism more effectively utilizes and maximizes the talents of each believer?  A brief review of personal evangelism into 3 categories:

  1. Proclamational
  2. Confrontational
  3. Incarnational / Relational

2.  The power of questions in conversational evangelism

I teach on conversational skills in evangelism.

While I believe it’s appropriate and a good practice to know a gospel presentation by heart, I think that asking good questions unlocks further avenues of conversations that leads to life change.

There is a time for questions.

There is a time for giving answers and the reason for the hope within us.

3.  Is relational evangelism Biblical?

Some critics of relational evangelism claim, among other objections, that there is no biblical evidence for a relational evangelism approach.

Let me lift up a few examples of how the gospel spread through personal relationships

4.  10 Ways to Kickstart Your Personal Evangelism

You can have the joy of introducing a person to Jesus Christ.  Watching people awaken to their faith in Christ because of your personal evangelism work is one of the greatest joys you can experience as a Christian.

Yet many pastors and church members often neglect their personal evangelism, sometimes through no fault of their own.

I’ve searched my archives and came up with 10 of the best action posts for personal evangelism to help you kickstart your passion to reach people for Christ.

5.  4 Free Evangelism Tools that Every Believer Must Have

Churches without a budget for evangelism training can still grow the evangelistic passion within a congregation with these four free resources that every church already has.

Your church already has these four free evangelism tools.

Use them.

The Church Greeter Tips

1.  Ten Tips for Church Greeters.

A video, top failures, and important lessons for church greeters.

2.  10 Things Every First Time Church Greeter Should Know

So you want to be a church greeter, but too embarrassed to say you are not sure what you are doing?

If you are a first time church greeter, here are ten things you need to know about the work of the greeter in the church.

3.  20 Stupid Things Church Greeters have said.

All of these have come across my twitter feed and in 2013, the trend continues.

Which one make you laugh out loud?

Which one makes you cringe?

4.  Church Greeter Training Discussion Starter Video

Every church wants their guests to return, and not be driven away by church greeters who say embarrassing things.

How your guests experience your greeters is one of the central influences in their decision to return to your church.

Yet depending on what study you read, up to 70% – 90% of those visitors don’t come back for a second visit.

Training your church greeters is one area that you can focus on to lower that number for your congregation and improve the rate at which visitors to return.

5.  Church Greeter Resources at EvangelismCoach.org

Over 6 years of teaching on church greeters, I’ve assembled many church greeter resources of my own.

Here is a quick list of how to get it all and where to find it.

The Hospitality Tips

1.  Other things to say besides good morning.

Is there something more Church greeters can say than “Good morning?”

Read on what various hospitality team leaders had to say.  Then add your own.

2.  Ten Ways to Grow Your Hospitality Ministry

No church wants to give a their first time visitor or returning guest a bad experience.

When visitors have a bad experience with your church, often your error is something unintentional.

This is a quick list of ten areas that you can work on to grow your hospitality ministries.

3.  8 Steps to Launching a Hospitality Committee

At the beginning of each year, many churches form new church hospitality committees or relaunching a tired committee with new people.

They want to update or infuse their church hospitality program with new ideas.

One common question that I get, particularly from smaller churches that have ignored this issue for some time is:

How do we start a church hospitality program?

4.  Six Ways to Follow Up on First Time Visitors

One reason to improve your church hospitality is to increase the number of first time visitors who decide to return to your congregation after the first visit.

Once your first time visitor comes and fills out a church visitor information card, what are some next steps you might take?

5.  How to Follow Up on an Anonymous First Time Visitor

They have chosen not to fill your connection card, friendship pad, pew register, guest book, etc.

They have signaled that they wish to remain anonymous.  Depending on the size of your church, you might not even know they have come.

If you don’t get their contact information, you can’t send them literature, make a home visit, carry cookies to their house, or invite them to come to the next service.

How can you follow up with them if you have no record of their presence?

6.  12 Ministry Leaders share what’s in their Visitor Welcome Folder

Many churches choose to use a Church Welcome packet as a way of quickly communicating news and programming information to first time church visitors.

The First Time Visitor packet can be used to share

  • the breadth of your church’s ministry programming,
  • as well as include perhaps a little thank you gift.
  • Simple next steps towards making new friends.

New Products in 2013

1.  Church Greeter Training Collection (2 Recorded Webinars)

2.  4 Growth Steps in Personal Evangelism (MP3)

3.  Visitor Assimilation Training (Recorded Webinar)

Please share some of these resources and posts with your church teams.

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6 Christmas Strategies to Grow Your Church

I’ve been the first time visitor to churches during the Christmas season.  I have been the first time visitor to a Christmas Eve service where I didn’t ever want to go back.  On the other hand, I visited a church on Christmas Eve and was so impressed I wanted to invite friend the following week.

What will your first time visitors decide this Christmas season?  Will your worship service fill them with such hope and comfort that they wan to bring a friend?  Or will your church members ignore their presence and secretly hope those visitors won’t return?

Here are 6 Christmas strategies you can be doing to help your church fulfill its mission to share the gospel and change lives.

6ChristmasStratgies

1.  Make invitations easy.

Use the Christmas season to encourage your members to invite their friends to church.   Here are a couple of ways.

2.  Find ways to bless your community.

As you bless the community during the Christmas season, your church will create good will in the community.  Check out some of these ideas:

Each of these ministries are designed to not only bless the community, but seize the opportunity to share information about Christmas services.

3.  Encourage your members to have parties with their neighbors.

Christmas is full of parties and celebrations.  You can encourage your members to be intentional in spending time with their neighbors or co-workers, and look for those moments to share some of their own personal faith journey.

4.  Review and update your church welcome practices.

Have your hospitality coordinator or ministry leader do a quick review of your church’s welcome, and then empower them to make some quick and easy changes.

For example, you might have former members who only attend your church on Christmas Eve.  What can your greeters say to welcome them?  (Help Don out: what would you say?)

Check out these other ideas

Download the Church Hospitality Audit 3.0.  It’s free.  Pastor Ford said:

I downloaded the audit and forwarded it to our hospitality leader. We work hard on developing hospitality in our church and yet there were a couple of things I learned from the audit that we have not done. I would recommend everyone downloading it.

5.  Create a comeback sermon series

You could print up some business card size series promotional for members to share, just like you may have done for your special Christmas services.

It might be a series tied to new year resolutions that emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit in changing us.  You might do a sermon series on dealing with sin in relationships.  You want to plan an attractive series that will make it easy for your first time visitor to want to return.

You’ll need to help newcomers and non church goers discover value in attending church.

6.  Plan your assimilation steps ahead of time

With the comeback sermon series, you’ve made the next step easy to follow.  However, churches that fail to plan their assimilation strategies generally won’t see growth.  Take the time to review your intentional pathway to help returning visitors build relationships.  The goal is creating space for relationships to organically develop.

Read more:

Candle Photo Credit: Flickr, via blacklord

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Do you need to refresh your devotional life?

Personal Evangelism will reignite your personal devotional times. Read how

Does your devotional life seem a little dull and routine?

Want to spark a fire for a new round of momentum to keep up your spiritual disciplines?

Then make sure you get involved in sharing your faith with people on a regular basis.

As you talk about your own relationship with Christ with spiritually thirsty people, you will re-discover an element of joy that may have been lost because your devotional life has gone stale.

conversations

When you answer sincere questions from a seeker who is talking about his or her faith journey, you’ll re-discover a refreshed desire to pray for those around you who don’t know Christ.

When your friend gets clarity on misconceptions about Jesus and you continued to see their renewed interest, you’ll recall the joy of your own discoveries of faith as you came to know the grace of Christ.

But sometimes your friends won’t listen.

When they shut down those conversational doors, you’ll get frustrated at their spiritual blindness (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Since you were once spiritually blind too, then start praying for their spiritual eyes.

When they argue with your presentation of Jesus, you might experience the grief of their current rejection of the savior.  Take that to prayer.

When they ask a question you can’t answer or explain, you might experience a desire to find out the answers and grow in your own understanding of your relationship with Christ.

Personal evangelism renews a devotional life.

Recently, I walked with my friend.  That is one way I practice evangelism in the course of my life.

One of the discussion items that came up was the current topic of my small group – how do we live out our faith in the “fear of the Lord?”  After all, Proverbs 1:7 says

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

That opened up nearly an hour long two way conversation that dwelt in themes like:

  • How to develop a relationship with God
  • What about the people who’ve never heard the gospel?
  • “All religions are true” and why that doesn’t make any sense.
  • How sin affects each person no matter how good they think they are.
  • How Jesus reconciled us to God so that we might have a relationship with Him.
  • How many good works does one have to do to secure the blessing of God and earn a spot in heaven.

His spiritual curiosity was fascinating.  I enjoyed the “a-ha” moments he found as we talked about the biblical truths and clarified some of his misconceptions.

As he started visiting my church after several personal invitations, I’m seeing forward progress in his journey to faith.

I found myself renewed in a desire to pray for his discovery of Jesus.

I wanted to refresh some reading of books on answering objections or evangelistic conversations, such as God Behaving Badly, or Tactics.

My devotional life has perked up once again.

Do Something

Today, have a conversation with a friend about your faith and put a fresh wave of joy in your devotional life.

Here are some evangelistic conversation starters if you need a little help.  Click on the image:

 

Collection of Questions to Use in Personal Evangelism

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Book Review: Living Dangerously, Shawn Anderson

LivingDangerouslyCoverThe Great Commission calls each of us to “Go and make disciples.”  Your lifestyle plays a part in that process.  Eventually, you’ll need to talk about your faith in Christ and share the gospel, but your lifestyle and your character will play a role in your witness.

What areas of your character significantly impact another person’s journey to faith?  Are there identifiable character traits that impact your evangelism?

Shawn Anderson makes a significant contribution to answering this question in his book Living Dangerously: Seven Keys to Intentional Discipleship.   He did a national study (in the USA) of adult conversion experiences to see what were some common characteristics of a person who led someone to start following Christ.

Anderson asks adult converts to think of key influencers in their journey to faith and what characteristics played a significant role in their decision to follow Christ.

It’s not a study of new converts and their background, but what about their “key influencers” that helped lead them to faith in Christ?

The focus

In my reading so far, this is a different angle to the effective evangelism question.  Anderson’s work is not a study of evangelism techniques, as in

  • memorize this presentation,
  • develop this argument,
  • seek after the lost,
  • build relationships, etc.

There are plenty of books available on these evangelism approaches, the spiritual beliefs of unbelievers, and church growth methods about attracting people to Jesus via missional communities or attractional church methods.   Yet, Anderson saw a gap – there are not many books focused on the discipler – the person who is instrumental in helping a person find faith in Christ.

He choses that term based on the Great Commission.   Anderson intentionally makes a distinction between a discipler (all of us) and an evangelist (a particularly gifted person or office in the church).  In the context of his book, this is a helpful distinction to understand.

I determined that I would uncover the mysteries of discipleship by asking people about their conversion process, so conducted a nationwide study to better understand how people became followers of Jesus. I hypothesized that people are led to Jesus when there is someone who takes a special interest in their salvation.

My thesis was that this person is especially influential in the lives of unbelievers when his or her life reflects Jesus, the greatest teacher of disciples. The results revealed that, indeed, individuals were influenced to commit their lives to Jesus by people who modeled Jesus in their lives.

The 7 top characteristics

Discipleship involves creating disciples out of unbelievers.  Our role is to introduce people to Jesus.  As such, Anderson identifies 7 character traits of the disciplemaker that are influential.

  1. Loving
  2. Faithful
  3. Authentic
  4. Knowledgeable
  5. Trustworthy
  6. Caring
  7. Passionate

These are the character traits of a disciple maker that had the most influence in helping an adult become a believer in Christ.

Each chapter explores these character traits in fuller detail, particularly focused on how to develop this trait a little more in your own life.  For example, in the chapter on “Knowledgeable,” Anderson writes:

“Nevertheless, unbelievers indicated that there were explicit indications of knowledgeable disciplers. They revealed that knowledgeable disciplers studied the Word of God, made the Scriptures relevant, and welcomed biblical questions . . .Some factual knowledge is essential in making disciples, but what seems to matter more to them is our ability to make the Bible relevant to their lives.” (71).

If some bible knowledge is important, then Anderson takes the step to call us into personal devotions, self-feeding, as well as consuming sermons.  We need to understand ourselves how the Bible is relevant to our life.

Lifestyle Evangelism from Paul

Anderson’s research confirms that verbal proclamation can be supported through the characteristics of our lifestyle.  The Apostle Paul’s character witness was just as a important as his verbal witness. He lives out lifestyle evangelism when we worked among the Thessalonian church.  He writes:

We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority.  Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.   Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.  You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.  For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2: 6-12 (NIV)

Anderson’s research helps to identify particular characteristics that we can develop that are effective in relational evangelism.

Order your Copy

Order your copy of Living Dangerously: Seven Keys to Intentional Discipleship from Amazon today.

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