Okay, Let's Invite People to Church

I have never really encouraged you to invite people to church. I’ve been wary of promoting DGC instead of Jesus. I want us to be the church and trust Jesus to build the church. But I think God is teaching me that I’ve been unbalanced.

Last week, I came across the following image while reading Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis:

In terms of how I’ve been talking about evangelism, I’ve majored on sharing the gospel, minored on building relationships and practically BANNED introducing people to our Christian community.

I’ve told you things like, “don’t invite people to church, invite people to Jesus.” Of course I still believe it’s more important that people hear about Jesus than church. I still believe inviting people to church can become an unhelpful replacement for sharing the gospel with people. But I’ve left out what Chester and Timmis call the “community project” aspect of evangelism–the fact that we are Christ’s body when we work together.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). Friendship doesn’t save. Church involvement doesn’t save. But to share the gospel, often we will wrap it in genuine friendship and church relationships.

So, let’s do it. Let’s invite people to church. But with a few guidelines:

The gospel is still the power. Friendship and introduction to the community of Christ are not two equal threads with sharing the gospel, but will often be part of the process.

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Introduce people to people. Never invite people to DGC the geographical location or impersonal organization. There’s no such thing! DGC is you and me, so invite people to spend time with and get to know us as people who love Jesus and one another.

Invite as a person. I’m still not a fan of impersonal invitations such as fliers and advertisements divorced from relationship, though we may start doing more of this in order to communicate more openly with the community around us. Just keep in mind that neither Jesus nor Christian community is a product. It’s all personal and relational. Therefore, building relationships is somewhat of a prerequisite for inviting into the community. For more on building relationships, see this post from Jonathan Dodson.

Never Invite to Prop up Church Attendance, but to Make Disciples. Don’t think about attendance. Think about discipleship. Who in your life might be helpfully nudged toward Jesus as a prospective disciple by being invited to church?

How do we strengthen the third strand, introducing people to the community? Here are seven suggestions, though I’m sure there are many other ideas. If you have some, feel free to share in the comments section.

Meals. I still think this is one of our best avenues to build genuine relationships, gain opportunities to share the gospel and introduce people to the community of Christ. The Thomas’ have exemplified this in our neighborhood, inviting both their non-Christian friends and fellow church members to dinner–not as some covert conversion ploy, but in a genuine attempt to build relationships with delightful people, share the gospel and introduce folks to the church community. So this spring, let’s fire up our grills, look for more people to eat with during our lunch breaks and reach out.
Organized Church Activities. Bring friends along to things like House to House, Men’s Breakfast, youth meetings, YAH lunches, etc. After getting to know us in less formal settings, people might be interested in coming to a Sunday morning worship service where they’ll see the community engaged in learning and worshiping Jesus, which will help them further understand what it looks like to trust and follow Jesus.
Easter. If you do want to invite people to a Sunday morning worship service, the Easter Sunday service will be a good choice. Many people want to go to a church on holidays like this and we ought to encourage it. So invite away!
New Summer Plans. Soon I’ll be communicating some new plans for the summer that might provide good opportunities to introduce people to the community. Stay tuned!
Get Together. Maybe you are a natural social organizer and you’d like to get people together to hang out outside of church. GO FOR IT! Call some people up to go out to eat. Get the kids together at the park. Go to the movies. And invite both church people and outside friends.
Use Your Gifts. Maybe you’re not social at all and will never be the one to put together a dinner party, etc. That’s okay. Maybe your place in the body is to pray or go along with plans that others make. Maybe you’re the one who can answer the hard questions that come up in gospel conversations that the more social people can’t.
Think and Pray. We need to prayerfully search the scriptures together as we move forward here. This post is just one brainstorm and I know God will give many of us ideas and insights to help us along the way.