Author: art rogers
Inviting the Lost to Church 1
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 @ 12:01 am
When is it alright or not alright to invite lost people to church?
When you shape a conversation toward God, what’s your lead line? Is it ever an invitation to church?
Do you aim for getting lost people in church? Why?
The follow up post on this will give my answers as well as some interesting statistics.
For now, let’s see if we can still generate a conversation over here…
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Church, General Christian, Missional
September 26th, 2007 at 6:28 am
I guess it’s always ok to do that. My personal opinion is that the Bible speaks of Christians getting together to promote love and good works, to edify the body, things of that sort. I don’t see any instructions for lost folks to do that. But I’m not sure the Bible is comprehensive as to approaches to evangelism, or we’d all be walking door to door (and to church, come to that).
Conventional church may turn some folks off to Jesus, but if He’s drawing them, I doubt that would happen. And for every person who’s turned off, probably as many would be turned ON.
My current 45 years chasing God started when my neighbor invited us to Sunday School….
September 26th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Sadly,
It depends on th church. I think Bob is right some churches will turn off unbelievers.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Obviously I wouldn’t invite a lost person to a church business meeting.
I would invite a lost person to normal worship services, even if they are not specifically evangelistic in approach or message. I believe that God chooses to work through His people as “means” therefore, His Word can penetrate even the hardened heart even with a sermon on discipleship.
We have multiple entry points for non-believers such as specific evangelistic events, Sunday School, morning worship, servant evangelism, and small groups ministry. I would not hesitate to invite a non-believer to any of these entry points.
Les
September 26th, 2007 at 11:45 am
I personally believe that invitations to church are hugely important, and the more we’re convinced of the person’s “lostness” the more important it is to invite them. I very rarely get the opportunity to speak to a lost person for 20-30 minutes, uninterrupted, with the Gospel. I know my pastor is going to give the Gospel when he preaches. Yes, there will be other topics, but there is always something there to reach out to the unsaved. I know they will be confronted with Jesus if I can get them to church. Baptists have horribly discouraged “inviting someone to church” in the past years - it’s almost considered a “bad” thing to do. I’ve heard it many times “witnessing doesn’t mean just inviting someone to church.” Thus, very few Baptists invite others to church, because they feel like it’s a copout.
I say that very few “witnessing” encounters are done effectively enough to even lightly compare with the value of an unsaved person hearing the gospel in church.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Great questions!
For the past 5 plus years I have had a burden for young adults. In that short time I have had to change how I approached them with Jesus. An invite to church almost always shortened the converstation and sometimes ended it. I found that in both “lost” and “believers”. If I built a relationship with them and I was able to bend the coversation towards church, where I went was always asked. Then I always told them how friendly, loving, and an example of what the church meant to me.
In building a relationship with “lost” or “unchurched believers” my wife and I invite them and 2 or 3 similar aged church members to our house for dinner or games. Almost always how we know each other, leads to same interests and church will come up.
Which leads to an issue that is starting to bother me. I’m spending more time “at” church instead of “being” church. We went from a church that met once on Sunday and on Thursday nights to a church with Sunday AM/PM and Wednesday PM. We had one committee that met maybe once a quarter. Now (I know my fault) Sunday can be full with meetings and choir practice.
I look forward to hearing the answers (is there one?) to your questions!
September 26th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I don’t see a problem inviting them to a regular church service. I heard on the radio that this is still an effective means of leading people to Christ. Of course, I would not have them come to a business meeting. LOL
September 27th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I start with the relationship and then try to invite them to sone kind of activity away from church (eat or ballgame or something). I then slowly work God and Jesus into the conversation and get a feel for where they are.
Then I go after them from were they are!