How To Invite Someone To Church

Strategy is important during this time of year. 

How are you going to buy your gifts for others?

Whose house are you going to be at and when?

What order will you open your presents?

When will that glorious Christmas ham be served up?

All valid questions because at this time of year you want to do things well. Whether that is gift buying, family time, christmas day, or meals it feels like you have to have the perfect plan to get everything done. 

I believe the same thing happens when we encourage people to invite others to a Christmas Church experience. 

We start to ask ourselves:

Who should I invite?

When should I invite them? 

How should I invite them?

Once again, fantastic questions to ask, but the issue is that we overwhelm ourselves with those very same questions that are designed to help us.


Let me help you out here by breaking down these questions.

Who should you invite? 

We should invite who God puts in our path. 

We frankly waste a lot of time thinking about people, when we should just be looking for people who you interact with. 

There might be a cashier that you talk to, someone at the gas station, your family that will be in town, a friend that asks you your christmas plans. Any of these are incredible people to ask!

They are in your path, they are in your life, and maybe they just need someone to step up and talk to them about Jesus and the Church. That conversation could be the one thing that helps them take that step of faith. 

I can’t help but think about Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.

Acts 8:27-31

“There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud.

The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.”

When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

Philip was living life and out of nowhere comes a great opportunity. Follow that example. 

When should I invite someone?

NOW.

Man, oh man. We have to stop waiting for the perfect opportunity. Just do it now. As soon as that door opens, jump through it. It’s so extremely rare that everything lines up perfect. 

We often wait on perfect when we should work in the present. 

I was reading The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas recently and this quote stuck out to me. (Paraphrased into modern language)

“In today's world, a man can forge his own path through courage. But Hesitating even for a moment might mean missing the opportunity that fortune presents during that precise second.”

The opportunity is today, right now, don’t miss it. 

How should I invite them?

This is a personal favorite of mine. There are three things, I believe that create an effective invite. 

1.Invite them to church. 

Literally say something like - “Hey you should check out our Christmas services at The Rock”

2. Share your experience

This is where you get to talk about what you love at your church body. This turns the church going experience very personal! 

3. Save them a seat.

How much value will you show someone by saying that they can sit with you? Now not every case is going to be this way, but I do believe that when we are able to invite someone to sit with us, we are able to subliminally say - “You matter to me.” That’s a great way to show that. 


Statistically speaking this season and the Easter season are two of the highest rates of people going to a Church experience. What that tells me is that people are more receptive than any other time of year to come to Church. If we, as the Church body, don’t take advantage of that, we are missing a major opportunity to help people find what matters. 

I’m going to challenge you like I challenge myself to be an inviter this month. 



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