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.
Has this happened to you?
You invite a friend to church because you are excited about a new sermon series.
They are polite, but continue to dismiss your invitation with “Some day.”
The timing of your church invitation just doesn’t resonate with them.
How can you change that?
How can you increase the likelihood that your friend will say Yes and come to your church? [Read more…] about When to invite someone to church and not get rejected
As Easter is not too far away, what are you doing to help your church visitors and invited guests to come back the following week?
The following article is from a friend of this ministry, Gary Rohrmayer, who writes at YourJourneyBlog.
Read on for what Gary shares.
To read the development of each of the subpoints, visit the original article on Easter outreach here.
You are working hard at having an explosive Easter, your largest Resurrection Sunday in the history of your church…but are you prepared to keep that crowd?
How do you plan to keep your Easter crowd coming back again and again?
When you think in the terms of retaining the crowd God gives you remember these three words: Assimilation. Transformation. Mobilization.
When you think of these words you must break them down into key steps for the individual. What are you asking them to do?
These nine questions will assist you in evaluating your retention plan.
I believe the future of our churches is in the harvest. The potential of future servants, future leaders, future inviters, future contributors, future staff, future elders and even future pastors are waiting in the guests we welcome today. If churches believe this then they will treat every guest like a superstar with VIP treatment.
I really like this church invitation video.
I’ve used it several times in various conferences. Always gets a great laugh when the punch line is revealed.
While it’s free on YouTube, you should really buy the rights to use it from SermonSpice, like I did.
Honor the creators of this video with buying it.
Feed readers will need to click through to see the video.
Recently, I was asked via Ask EvangelismCoach about ways to increase the number of invitations to church that members give to their network of friends.
Review these posts to get on board with some of the answers
Today, I want to add number 4.
The preached sermon is the focus of our worship gatherings.
If you are the pastor, take a review of your sermons.
In other words, will my friend understand the sermon?
Have you explained theological terms in plain language?
Are you keeping the theology in the textbook, but making theology accessible to people who may not understand?
I think some modern preachers do this well. I listen to podcasts from Andy Stanley, David Jeremiah, Tim Keller. These men explain theological terms and concepts in words that are easy to understand.
In the church we are currently visiting, the preaching pastor does this well as he has been teaching on core doctrines of the church.
In the church we are helping plant, our teaching pastor does this as well as he connects theology with real life.
I’ve also listened to some sermons that felt like doctoral dissertations, full of seminary language, full of theological language, and full of concepts that really don’t make sense outside of Christian circles.
My preaching professor once said something to the effect that sermon preparation is digging in the mine, but the sermon is the cleaned up jewel that is easy to see. I’ve always kept that in mind as I strive to keep my sermons simple to understand.
Jesus taught with simple illustrations that were grounded in real life. His stories were simple, but left the listener with profound stirrings and thoughts.
If your members find that your sermons are simple to understand, you make those sermons accessible to their friends.
You want your church members to say “My friend needs to hear this.”
In other words, will my friend get something out of the sermon that applies to their life?
Or are your sermons so disconnected from real life, it’s just a black hole of information that serves little purpose?
I’ve been in churches where tight theology is more important than relevance.
I’ve visited churches where sermons were educational exercises in university level thinking about economics.
I’ve heard sermons that were running commentary on current events and arguments over which presidential candidate should be elected.
I’ve heard sermons on spiritual warfare that would freak-out a non-Christian who is exploring faith.
Is your sermon applicable to real life situations that my friend might benefit from?
This is where sermon series on personal finance, marriage, relationships, and other life topics are a good source of a preaching material.
Even for those who favor expository verse by verse preaching need to make the effort to connect their sermon points to real life, either in application or illustration.
If your members find that your preaching connects the word of God to real life situations, you’ll find your church members regularly thinking “My friend needs to hear this too.”
It used to be that sermons were recorded to cassettes and cds, copied, and then passed around.
In today’s technology enviornment, there is no reason you cannot put your sermons on your church website for easy sharing.
If you are still using cassettes or not recording them at all, consider this video:
Resources for easy sermon capture:
There are plenty of benefits of recording and putting your sermons as an MP3 at your website.
With sermon recording now this easy and inexpensive, perhaps it’s time to start getting the Word back out there with some low cost recorders.
As you prepare your sermons, think about the unchurched person who will be visiting this Sunday and ask yourself, what might you need to explain better for them.
Find ways to start getting your sermons online and accessible in other ways than just showing up on Sundays.
Helping church members invite their friends is one of the side effects of an engaged church, as Albert Winesman wrote Growing an Engaged Church.
The basic question of his book is addressed on the jacket:
What would a church look like if members of its congregation were 13 times more likely to have invited someone to participate in the church in the past month?
Or if they were three times as satisfied with their lives, or spent two hours per week serving the community?
Based on solid research by The Gallup Organization, Growing an Engaged Church appeals to both Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders who are looking to create this kind of change — a way to be the church instead of just “doing church.”
Winesman states the engagement problem from the perspective of a church visitor:
“People with God-sized holes in their lives show up, hoping beyond hope to get just a portion of that hole filled. But many of them walk away still carrying the void, and are more discouraged than when they first came.”
In his opening chapter, he tells the fictional story of a couple that has moved from one town to another. In this case, they used to be involved in a congregation in their home town, but now have to find a new church due to a relocation. He describes their struggle to connect with a church and get re-engaged again.
At the end of the day, this couple simply settles for a church, rather than find one that gets them excited.
Here are some of his findings:
Wisemann spends time discussing various ways to increase these and 9 other factors in Growing an Engaged Church. You’ll need to get your copy to find ways grow these 12 factors of an engaged church. There are too many to list here and is not quite the point of this post.
“Those who are engaged are more than 10 times (64% to 6%) more likely than those who are actively disengaged to strongly agree that they have invited someone to participate in their congregation in the previous month.” (Tweet this)
Not-engaged congregants are part of the “crowd,” those who attend regularly but are perhaps more socially connected to the community rather than emotionally and rationally committed.
The disengaged “give less, serve less, and invite less” (p 68) and are often very satisfied with their church simply for what it does
provide to them.
Put simply, members who are feel engaged with the church are more likely to invite their friends.
As I read Growing an Engaged Church, I found myself saying “yes” a whole lot to his assertions and discoveries.
We are on a temporary assignment for four months that requires us live away from our home and church planting ministry.
We picked a local church and want to get involved, but we have found it hard to get connected or engaged two months into the process.
Our kids are doing fine connecting with the youth group. In fact, they’ve already started inviting their new school mates to their youth group.
But as adults, we are still struggling with engagement –
Since we are not really engaged in the life of this church yet, our desire to invite others to join us at this church is not quite strong enough.
There is no compelling reason for me to invite friends or family to this church yet – we ourselves don’t have a place or enough emotional connection to the church.
Don’t misunderstand me however. I am sure the church has great programs and people have deep relationships. The church is growing at a steady pace.
My point here is that we are not yet sufficiently engaged with the life of this congregation to feel enthusiastic about inviting people to join us.
Suppose I am asked:
“Why should I go to church with you? What’s the point of giving up what I normally do on Sunday?”
I don’t have an answer to that question yet.
Get your own copy of Growing an Engaged Church from Amazon (affiliate link).
