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.
[Read more…]
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?
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).
Recently, I’ve been 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 add number 3
Are your members proud of their church?
This was a question that came out of a coaching session I gave to a pastor looking to increase the number of invitations that church members give.
What might that look like?
Here are a few we brainstormed:
When there is joy and an emotional connection, people may be more willing to invite their friends and family to church.
I’ve attended some churches as a visitor that were disturbingly embarrassing.
You might get the idea.
I actually did a temporary assignment for 6 months as a pastor of dying church with such problems. They had some big ticket items to fix as well like out of date decorating and colors, but there were plenty of fixable things that could be done on a low budget as well as free.
Even as the temporary pastor, I didn’t want to invite people to this church – it was embarrassing.
The one person I did invite was a guest vocalist, and I felt the need to apologize to her for the experience she was about to have.
Maybe it’s time to review your Sunday service and look for potential sources of embarrassment and make steps to start addressing those.
Maybe it’s time to review your on-ramps for newcomers to your church to start building meaningful relationships.
Maybe it’s time to review your ministry out in the community that adds a sense of pride and value to volunteers and gives your church members a sense of contribution and connection.
What might you be able to do to increase the sense of pride in your congreagtion that might ramp up the number of personal invitations to church?
Do you want to discuss your where your personal invitation momentum is stuck? I offer a coaching call where I spend time on the phone with you or your committee, up to 90 minutes, where I help you trouble shoot and develop some action plans. Read more about that hospitality coaching here.
LifeWay Research did a study and asked how many times they have personally, “invited an unchurched person to attend a church service or some other program at your church?”
Even if personal invitations are the most effective form of increasing visitor traffic to your church, nearly half the people surveyed have not invited an unchurched person to church.
Prayer for the unchurched people in your circles of influence is a vital part of sharing your faith
The same study revealed
According to Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research,
praying more frequently for the status of people who are not professing Christians is the best indicator of more spiritual maturity in the entire Sharing Christ factor.
If you are going to be intentional about sharing your faith, praying for others is a great way to start. We often acknowledge the importance of prayer in people coming to faith in Christ, but we also found it has an impact on the person praying,” he said.
In the previous article in the series of giving more invitations to church, I focused on prayer.
As I continue to look at various ways to increase the number of personal invitations to church that your church members give, today’s article is focused on the number of personal friends who are unchurched.
Again, the statistics show that a personal invitation from a friend is the best way to get church visitors.
For that to happen, our church members must be in regular and ongoing contact with people who do not go to church.
Are your church members actively engaged in intentional relationships with people who don’t know Christ?
How about you? What is your honest answer to that question?
Active involvement in the life of non-Christians will put you in a place to give a personal invitation to church.
As you regularly attend your church, you’ll see places where a sermon series might connect with the life struggles of your friend.
You’ll hear sermons that will make you think: “I wish my friend could hear this.”
Or you’ll hear some wisdom from a sermon that will allow you to speak the Bible’s wisdom directly into the life of your friend.
If you are actively involved in the life of non-Christians, you’ll begin to see connections between their needs and opportunities to invite them to church.
I regularly visit a park in the late afternoons. I’ve met another immigrant dad who is always there with his daughter.
While our kids play together, we usually have a conversation.
We are still in the “getting to know you” phase of a friendship, since the only thing in common is our kids playing in the park a few afternoons at a time.
Yet, within the 2nd or 3rd conversation I could tell he was open to an invitation to my church. We had been talking about church attendance and activities, and it became a recurring theme in our short conversations.
He told me he didn’t attend church regularly. He expressed his desire that he wanted to start taking his daughter somewhere. He even mentioned that was casually looking but was nervous about attending a place without any prior contact.
Our conversation led to a natural invitation to church.
A few conversations gathered enough trust to make a safe invitation to church.
Maybe it’s time to invite people to take inventory of their current relationships and intentionally develop new ones.
Herb Miller wrote a short list in Church Effectiveness Nuggets (Vol 8) that can help you lead people to reflect upon their social network:
Either in printed form or oral form, or both, the following paragraphs raise consciousness concerning people the worshippers could invite to worship.
Read the paragraphs slowly at an appropriate time in the worship service, accompanied by meditative background music.
- Think of family members: spouse, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, inlaws, nephews, and nieces.
- Think of neighbors: next-door neighbors, elderly persons in the neighborhood, and new families on your block.
- Think of people at work: supervisors, employees you supervise, secretaries, clerical staff, students you teach, clients, new staff members, and colleagues you see occasionally.
- Think of friends with whom you dine out: single friends, parents of your child’s friends, old friends from school, and friends of your spouse.
- Think of casual associates: your dentist, doctor, real estate or life insurance agent, your child’s teacher, merchants, service or luncheon club members, people who belong to clubs or associations or professional groups that you attend, babysitters,sales representatives who call on you, people who graduated from the same university.
- Think especially of people undergoing personal life stresses of some kind. These individuals are often ready to hear answers to their problems from within the Christian faith: People who recently divorced, couples with new babies, families that have experienced a recent death, households where someone has lost their job or suffered business reverses.
Use this procedure in morning worship two times a year as a stand-alone part of the worship experience.
The following week, several worshippers will notice the “invisible people” in their circle of acquaintances who do not attend church.
Noticing is the first step toward inviting.
Other ways to help your members think through their list of friends:
Check out this video on giving an invitation to church (Feed Readers may need to click through to see the video).
Notice what the fellow does at the end.
You can give your church members something similar to help them make that personal invitation to church
(c) 2007-2015, EvangelismCoach.org, 1391 NW St Lucie West Blvd #383, Port Saint Lucie FL 34986