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5 Minutes to Refresh a Vision for Church Hospitality

How to cast a vision for church hospitality in 5 minutesA frequent question I receive is how do pastors regularly cast a vision for hospitality ministries for the church.

Particularly when they are in charge of casting vision for everything.

So I want to share with you another practice for growing your church’s hospitality.

(Read Practice #1: Review your Church Hospitality Ministries)

Practice #2: Regularly remind the Congregation.

In the last two weeks, I’ve heard two different sermons where pastors did this very effectively.

Let me share with you two principles I observed.

1.  Reminder when preparing a big event

Many churches launch big events designed to attract new visitors.

This might be a new sermon series, or a seasonal event like

  • Easter,
  • Christmas, or
  • Back to School.

In vision casting for the big event, one pastor openly talked about the people he was inviting (modeling personal invitations).

He reminded the congregation that he expected them

  • to invite others themselves
  • to welcome and introduce themselves to others
  • to serve people with awesome and “above and beyond” hospitality.

The sermon itself was about how the church is a partner in evangelism.

This specific occasion in pastor’s sermon is inviting people to the new sermon series, where during the series, the gospel would be offered and explained.

To prepare the congregation, pastor gave a few minutes reminder about hospitality as a piece of that partnership.

He even included:

“I’m looking to you all to help welcome my guests, and those that you bring.  We need your help. . . “

He boldly went on to say something like:

“If you have decided you don’t want to serve here and welcome people you don’t know, we don’t really want you here long term – we’re not simply here to consume a sermon, but to love and serve those whom God brings to us that they may find Christ, not a cold church.”

That may not sound loving as you read it – but it fit very well in the context of the sermon to recast a new vision for hospitality ministry.

It wasn’t judgmental, but a tremendous reminder of the value of hospitality.

2.  Sermon illustration

The second preacher is teaching through the 7 letters to the churches in book of Revelation.

It’s part of a series of expository sermons.

While preaching on the church in Sardis, a church that needed to wake up because it got to comfortable with itself, Pastor shared some examples of how feared his church might fall asleep one day.

One of those examples related to welcoming a church visitor.

It came from actual stories that visitors shared with him about their experience with that church.

In less than 2 minutes, he effectively reminded the congregation of it’s role in serving and loving those visitors who come to church.

In a loving rebuke over a particular story, he called the congregation to a higher vision of welcoming the stranger.

Vision in less than 5 minutes

What impressed me about both sermons was that the hospitality related piece was under 5 minutes.

It was a minor part in a very short sermon (each was under 30 minutes).

Yet each was stated clearly enough, simply enough, and connected enough to the main point of the sermon that I was struck as a listener.

I felt invited to a greater cause: welcome the visitor.

I was reminded to meet someone I didn’t know.

I was reminded to think of others above myself before / during / and after the service.

Learn 13 more ways to Cast the Vision for A Great Welcome

Catch the Church Hospitality VisionThese are just a few different ways to reset the vision for a great welcome in your church.

On this MP3, I offer 13 more different ways and places where you can cast that vision in under 5 minutes at various places in the church life.  I want to help you answer how can you develop a passion within the congregation for welcoming first time visitors?

In this 79 minute audio MP3, pastors, hospitality ministry leaders, and volunteers will learn:

  • 4 Reasons Church Visitors Don’t Return and Which Ones You Can Fix
  • Evidence of Poor Church Hospitality Practices
  • Meeting the Expectations of Your Church Visitors
  • The Importance of Initiative in Greeting Church Visitors
  • 14 Ways to Cast a Hospitality Vision
  • How to Pray With Your Church Visitors
  • 7 Next Steps for the Next 30 days.

Format: MP3 audio download (70 MB)

Price: 10.00

Order Your Copy

Visit the EvangelismCoach.org store’s product page for the Catch The Vision MP3 Download and add it to your cart.

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How Paul Planted the Church in Corinth

NetworkingPeopleThis weekend in my devotional time, I spent time pondering how Paul planted a church in a foreign city, particularly Corinth, from Acts 18.

I found several parallels to my current church planting work.

1. He connected with the local people

When he came to the town, “he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla,” (18:2).

Paul went to see them, and “because he was a tent maker as they were, he stayed and worked with them” (v.3)

Here is an example of relationship building.  They had something in common – tent making, and that formed the basis of their relationship.  They were local, even though they were transplants from another city.

At this point in the story, we do not know if Aquila and/or Priscilla are believers.  We know that eventually they are, because of their role in discipling Apollos when they all meet him for the first time in Ephesus.

I recalled reading about the Luke 10 principles from The Rabbit and the Elephant (see review of The Rabbit and the Elephant).  There, the authors remind us of how Jesus sent out the people ahead of him, to find the “person of peace” and to stay with that person.  We see this pattern in Paul’s work here in Athens.  Aquila and Priscilla were those persons of peace.”

2. He worked among them

While staying at the house of Aquila and Priscilla, Paul used that as a base for his outreach every Sabbath.  Verse 4 reads “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.”

During the rest of the week, Paul was likely making his tents and setting up his business.  Costs were likely low as his lodging was covered, and he wasn’t supporting a family.

3. He devoted himself full time

Verse 5 reads: “When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching.”  This suggests some possible growth in Paul’s business – either

  • Paul had made enough funds from selling tents that he was free, or
  • Silas and Timothy took over business operations, or
  • Business had grown to the point where a manager was in charge, or
  • Aquila and Priscilla were running the business to support Paul (All three go to Ephesus).

Once they arrived, Paul was able to devote himself full time to the ministry of teaching.  As was his pattern, first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.  Verse 6 shows his opposition from the Jews, so he setup his teaching base next door.

Paul’s fear

Paul was busy doing good work.  Building relationships, conversing with people, and doing the basics of evangelistic work.  Yet even he was afraid of those who mocked, ridiculed, and opposed him.

The Lord gave Paul a vision one night: “Do not be afraid.”  At first, I thought this was the common greeting of angelic visitors, but as I peered into first Corinthians, I read “I came to you in weakness and with much trembling” (1 Cor 2:3).

Then there is guidance: “For I am with you, . . . .because I have many people in this city.”

Elijah had a similar fear – when he thought he was the only one – the Lord reminded him that there were others.

When one faces that kind of fear in personal evangelism, it can be emotionally draining.  When one thinks of all the other fears that hinder personal evangelism, we have this reminder that Paul faced similar fears.

How did the Lord comfort him?

“keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you”

In other words, God reminded Paul of his presence, and the presence of others in that city who could help him.

If you are a church planter, perhaps one prayer could be “Lord, where are the other people in this city who are called to help us?”

The question that stirs in my mind – what are my fears?

Planting Churches

This missionary work wasn’t setup and funded overnight.

In this case, Paul lives among his initial contacts in Corinth and then sets up and runs his business.  He grows it to the point where he can hand it off, likely using the proceeds to fund his own church planting or missionary activity.

In receiving comfort from God about his fear in the face of rejection, he likely begins to pray, “Lord, where are the other people.”  We see that new relationships develop in the next 18 months while Paul remains:

  • Titius Justus, a worshipper of God.
  • Crispus, the synagogue ruler and his household.
  • Sostehenes, the next synagogue ruler (v.17), who helped write 1 Corinthians (1:1)
  • Cloe’s household (1 Cor 1:11)

We can see how the Lord answered Paul’s prayer.

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Each week, I send out new articles to help you grow your church through personal evangelism, invitations, improving your greeter ministry, and refreshing your vision for church hospitality.  You’ll usually find a gem that you can use each week or at least every other week.  Join our community and share your thoughts.

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Image credit: yellomello / 123RF Stock Photo

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The Rabbit and the Elephant Webinar

Rabbit and Elephant Cover Felicity DaleThis webinar has passed.

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Sample Chapter - Rabbit and the Elephant 221.81 KB

A movement of house churches is reaching the tipping point in North America.  Some claim it’s a second Reformation.

How could we change the world if our Christian faith began multiplying at a rapid pace — through a way of life that is explosive and transformational?

We can grow, can we reproduce?

EvangelismCoach Webinar with Tony and Felicity Dale

pic_lg_dale_tonyx100Fleicity Dale Tony and Felicity Dale of  will join me, Chris Walker, and share some of the insights found in their book on simple churches. “The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why small is the new big for Today’s Church.” (Barna Books, May 2009)

As Christians, we are the church—whether we meet in office buildings, college dorm rooms, coffee shops, factories, or homes—and the Holy Spirit uses us to expand that church to the far reaches of the globe.

By practicing “simple church,” we’ll find that a small gathering of friends loving Jesus together and reaching out to the community around them can help us to be the church, the way God intended.

The Rabbit and the Elephant Synopsis:

If you put two elephants in a room together and close the door, in 22 months you may get one baby elephant. But two rabbits together for the same amount of time will result in thousands of baby rabbits!

In The Rabbit and the Elephant, “micro church” planters Tony and Felicity Dale use the “rabbit” illustration to show the pace at which the Christian faith can (and should) be growing—through evangelism that is explosive and transformational. The Rabbit and the Elephant contains the key to 21st century evangelism—taking the Gospel to where the pain and the people are.

We’ll look at

  • how “church” across the world is changing from being event-based to life and relationship-based.
  • how small and simple churches can multiply rapidly.
  • how to incorporate spiritual growth and outreach into every aspect of our lives.

*** No product pitches or sales (with exception of book mentions), but donations towards the cost of the webinar can be made after the webinar. ****

After the event, a PDF handout will be made available to participants.

Special note: I will conduct a special giveaway to 2 webinar attendees.  The only requirement is that you must be a resident of the US or Canada and that you attend the webinar.

Registration is Free, but required.

Date doesn’t work for you?

To be automatically informed as to our next webinar, signup for our Free Evangelism Newsletter and the a 5 part course on Church Hospitality.

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Church Hospitality Webinar Slides Only and Related Resources

We had a great webinar this afternoon.

Registrations from 10 different countries, covering 31 different states and churches from a wide variety of denominations and traditions.

Perhaps you’re wondering

  • How to improve your first impressions ministry for first time church visitors
  • What to say to a first time visitor.
  • How to train church greeters.

Do you want to retain more of your church visitors?

That process starts with a great first impression.

A first impression leads to a second visit.

A second visit leads to a third.

Additional visits help assimilate your visitor.

It all starts with great first impressions.

Church Hospitality Book Recommendations

How to Welcome Church Visitors, Chris Walker

A practical how to manual on first impressions with study questions.

Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church, Nelson Searcy

A book focused the mechanics of an effective assimilation process for his church.

Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series)

Strategy of sermon-based small groups to retain new people coming to your church.

First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences In Your Church

A book focused on training welcoming teams in large campus churches.

Related Links on EvangelismCoach.org

Evangelism Hospitality Products (as of 2012)

The Actual Presentation

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Improve your Hospitality Webinar 447.13 KB

Download the PPT Welcoming Church Visitors April 2009

Recordings

This webinar was not recorded in video or audio.

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11 Steps on How to Lead a Prayer Meeting Focused on Evangelism

Leading your church to pray for their personal evangelism efforts may not be as easy as you think.    I have found that people bring their own agendas to the prayer meeting and it becomes easy for the prayer meeting to be hi-jacked.  Here,  I want to offer to you a simple guideline for an evangelistic prayer meeting.

How to Lead an Evangelistic Prayer Meeting

1. In the name of Jesus Christ invite the Holy Spirit to lead the prayer group.

We are Christian believers who pray in Jesus name.  We need to remind ourselves of this regularly.

Asking the Holy Spirit to lead the prayer group helps us from keeping our agenda from taking control.

2. Offer a time of praise and worship of Jesus Christ.

Worship is where we connect with the Father’s heart.

Praising God for his works, thanking God for making a relationship with Him possible, and declaring one to another the marvelous works of the Lord strengthens our faith and reminds us to always be watching for God’s activity in our life.

3. Lead in a time of confession and prayer ministry with one another.

This may be a time to deal with any issues in the group.

Confession of sins or burdens clears the way to receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Conclude with prayers for one another, absolution and passing the peace.

4. Report on what God is doing.

Here the members of the team will briefly share any evangelism conversations they may have experienced or opportunities they may have missed.

Reflect upon and give thanks for these.

It may be that the Spirit will lead the team to pray for each one of your group and those to whom they have been given the opportunity to share the gospel.

5. Move into Intercession

The following may be helpful:

Pray according to Jesus’ commands: Pray thy Kingdom come.

In addition, pray that God the Father will send laborers. Ask God to show you specifically where His Kingdom is to come. Ask God specifically who the laborers are whom He is raising up. Be ready to be one of them!

Go through Paul’s list of ways of praying for evangelism. Linger on any of these that seem especially important for your situation.

One by one, with the whole group agreeing in prayer, lift up the names of those who have been given to the individuals in the group to be prayed into salvation. (A list should be kept by the leader of who these people are – this could be done by the whole group or in small groups.)

6. Discern open doors for the gospel.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the open doors in the community, the church, the world and in individuals for the gospel.

7. Ask God to reveal any blocks to the gospel message in these situations or people.

8. Ask the Lord what you or the team are being called to do.

9. Discern together what God is saying

God speaks to us through Scripture.  For those of us who believe in the ongoing work of Spiritual gifts and the guidance given by the holy Spirit, we may need to talk about impressions, leadings, visions, prophetic words, or by consensus of the group as part of that discernment. Keep a record of this guidance.

10. Pray for this guidance

Ask God for steps in implementation. Write these down as they are revealed for further discernment, prayer and implementation. These may later be taken to the church leadership for approval and implementation.

11. Conclude the meeting with praise and giving glory to Jesus Christ.

Note: The eleven steps above were first presented in a manual on personal evangelism through PRMI’s Phillip Endeavor.

That has been further refined and developed in the Evangelism Dunamis.

Photo Credit: I’m not sure where I got the original photo.  I’d like to give credit when I find the photo.

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Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part III

evangelism where you liveI’ve been reading Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community and I think it is a must read book for pastors of churches seeking to engage its community.

See Part I of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part I

See Part II of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part II

This final section of Chapters 5 – 8 gets into the nuts and bolts of what this might look like in the local church.

CBSE involves a Christ follower who serves others out of his or her passion, using one’s spiritual gifts at connection points of need in the community to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others as a salt and light servant.  . . . .

Administratively, CBSE reduces the church’s events and ongoing programs to allow people to be deployed into their daily lives to exercise their passions and gifts. (73)

Chapter 5: Salt and Light Servants

The majority of current discipleship material seems to be focused on information, not so much on experiential transformation.  The idea was that better information and accumulated information would lead to spiritual transformation.

The authors have seen this descend into matters of personal preference, rallies around the latest Christian bestseller, and rabbit trails into the most effectively marketed latest trend .

However, they see a shift from information to experience.

A method that fosters experience to help shape a person’s spiritual formation.

Educational materials are connected with service in the community “as the context to live out the expression of a life in relationship to Christ.”

I have often noted and taught that I learn by doing.

In other businesses, I could study, study, study, but until I was actually doing, the study didn’t make sense.  Study lead to hypothesizing, thinking about 1000 what ifs.

But not until I got into people’s lives and talking with them 1-1 about their spiritual journey did any of the studies seems to start finding a purpose.

Perhaps a quote from Randy Pope captures this better in this illustration:

Much in the way that eating creates no appetite for exercise, so too, I have found that Bible study and prayer alone do not create mission oriented Christians.  But, just as exercise creates a desire for food and drink, mission related activities create an insatiable thirst and hunger to feed on God’s word (89).

The idea is deploy your church members to serve their community and that kind of relational context will spur personal growth.

Eating has never created in us a desire to exercise, but preparing to run 26.2 miles in about 4 hours definitely creates not only a desire, but a need to eat (89).

In the same way, service may very well be the missing factor in developing fully devoted followers of Christ.  Transformation happens in combination with information and experience.

Chapter 6: Connection Points

The subtitle focuses the chapter on Evangelism Training.  The authors have given lots of evangelism training over the years, from memorizing gospel scripts, to relational evangelism seminars, yet not seeing any statistical evidence of new believers.  The rare church had more than 5 new believers in a year after the seminar.

Church’s are beginning to ask “Why is training people on how to share their faith not resulting in new Christ followers?”

The authors claim that intentional community service is the missing ingredient.  The chief issue is that our church members have lost touch with genuine relationships with people far from God.

To fulfill the front half of the Great Commission the process will always begin with a Christ-follower connecting with someone far from God.  To lead someone into a personal relationship with Christ has little to do with whether someone has attended training and learned a model presentation to the Gospel (95).

Connecting Points

The chapter lays out how to find connection points with the local community, beginning with an inventory from Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittleberg:

  • People we know
  • People we used to know
  • People we would like to know.

I use a similar idea with Spheres of Influence.

The key for churches is to assist members in creating a context for connection, but it remains up to the individual member to connect.

The third group, people we would like to know, is where the role of community service comes into play.  Relationships develop best around a need the mutual relationship can meet.

Where is your church member passionate?  Where is their burden? Examples:

  • Single Moms?
  • Fatherless kids?
  • Teachers?
  • Firefighters?
  • Undercover FBI agents?
  • Little League?

Where are their gifts?  Administratively gifted folks can organize events or run leagues.  Mercy gifted folks can visit people.

We have come to realize that not assisting our church members to develop a connection point into an authentic relationship is simply not providing good leadership.

Chapter 7 and 8: Implementing CBSE

Chapter 7 and 8 map out how to make such philosophical changes in implementing Community Based servant evangelism.  The authors note that there are several books about systemically changing a congregation, and they note that their system works when followed.

The process is organic and leadership driven.

First four steps are for the pastor, the next two are are for the leadership, and the last 5 are how to make it public.

  • Pray and read the Bible
  • Church leadership must own the mission of “Love God and Love Others”
  • Must be totally supported by the Senior Pastor and or Lead Pastor
  • Enlist top / key church influencers
  • Enlist a CBSE champion
  • Enlist a CBSE leadership team
  • Design a plan
  • Provide training
  • Cast the vision to your church
  • Implement the plan
  • Evaluate all aspects and correct

This list may seem generic in terms of changing systems, but the chapters tease them out more fully.

A Pastor’s Personal Prayer life

It strikes me how a pastor’s personal relationship with God is the root of this change, not only the pastors, but so also the rest of the leadership.

In a 2007 review of surveys of pastors,

two hundred seventy (270 or 26%) of pastors said they regularly had personal devotions and felt they were adequately fed spirituality.

Seven hundred fifty-six (756 or 72%) of the pastors we surveyed stated that they only studied the Bible when they were preparing for sermons or lessons.

If the root of systemic change in a church is found in a pastor’s personal relationship with God, then how can churches give their pastors time to nurture that relationship?    From another study in the same report:

We found that 90% of pastors work more than 50 hours a week. One out of three pastors state that being in the ministry is clearly hazardous for their families. One out of three pastors felt totally burned out within the first five years of ministry.

Research from Crandall (see 5 phases of renewal from Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church) indicates that personal renewal is the number one factor in successful turnaround in churches.

Research from Martha Gay Reese (Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism (Real Life Evangelism Series) elevates the importance of prayer for a congregation to pick up and maintain an evangelistic passion.

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Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community from Amazon

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