Each One Reach One

As reports of declining church attendance capture the attention of social chronicles, my pastor is fighting back with God's Word.

Today Pastor Mac concluded the stewardship series by teaching our congregation from the gospel of Luke how to be 'inviters'. As an outreach pastor, I listened eagerly because I have sought but never heard anyone teach how to consistently succeed as an invitational evangelist.

You may remember the story about a man who held a great banquet and invited a lot of people all of whom gave excuses not to attend. Pastor Mac taught that there are three reasons first time attenders will accept your invitation and how we should respond.

1. The first group will come simply out of respect for you. When you invite friends relatives co-workers and if they refuse, ask them to do you a favor by being your guest.

2. The second group have felt needs in their lives that our church can meet. Should they decline your invitation tell them about our awesome small groups, marriage ministry and children's church.

3. The third group will come out of simple curiosity. If they decline your invitation tell them them to come and see our beautiful facilities and hear the good music or laugh at the goofy jokes Mac tells.

The only way that the body of Christ will reverse the downward trend of church attendance is by recognizing that that the Word of God is the only solution to life's challenges and that each one of us has the power to bring others under the influence of God's Word.

An Invitational Experience

It is always good to view your church or ministry through the eyes of a visitor.

One of our pastors sent me a blog article that was written by a visitor to our church yesterday.

From the header on his blogpost I can tell that this gentleman is a Christian, which means that he probably has attended other churches previously. Although everyone has different expectations of church, it is interesting to note that his observations center around the appearance of the facility, the way he was greeted and the content of the message. These are are all factors that we can control.

Note that had he not been invited, this blog post would probably never have appeared. He concluded by saying that he would return.

In 2010, we plan to report many more such experiences. Good going Living Word!

CEO’s In Your Church?

Easter is the cornerstone event of Christian faith. On Easter the church celebrates the resurrection of Our Lord and His defeat of death, hell and the grave.

Studies indicate that more CEO's (Christmas and Easter Only) people attend will attend church next Sunday than any other day of the year. This makes Easter the prime outreach opportunity event of the year to invite friends, relatives and neighbors to church.

In Thom Rainer's book, The Unchurched Next Door, Dr. Rainer indicates that 82% of unchurched people are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited. What’s more interesting is that only 2% of church going people ever invite someone to church in a given year. In fact, seven out of ten unchurched people have never been invited to church in their whole lives.

To capture the opportunity that Easter presents, our church Living Word Christian Center prints and distributes thousands of calling card sized invitations to our special Easter service "Unfailing Love". Easter Sunday will be highlighted by Pastor Mac's message as well as fantastic multimedia, special music, and a repeat of last year's impacting human drama "Everything”.

This Easter I have decided to chronicle my invitational evangelism efforts. Annie and I are inviting our neighbors, an acquaintance named Dan and a relative. Check back next week as I will report the results.

If you have invited someone to church please let me know. You could have a CEO in the pew next to you on Easter!