Open the Front Door, Close the Back Door

    

                Growing the church comes down to opening the front door and closing the back door.  It is normal with health for there to be growth, little bodies grow to be big one and even when our bodies stop growing we take it as a sign of health that our minds keep growing.  Growing a church has to do with keeping the ones you have (close the back door) and getting some more (opening the front door).

                Many time church evangelism committees are really the welcoming committees.  Do we have a nice brochure to give the visitor?  Do we call them visitors suggesting they’ll just be moving on or do we call them guests suggesting more hospitality?  Do we have a coffee cup with the church logo to give them before they go?  Do we send a welcome letter?  All good considerations … once someone has come to church that is.  But you can keep do all this friendly stuff if they haven’t come in the first place. 

                Evangelism, I think, is about letting others know in a multitude of ways about the claims of and events around Jesus of Nazareth.  It’s a little different than putting the classified in the newspaper or the yellow pages to get people to come to church in the first place.  Evangelism is more about us going to them than it is them coming to us.  Getting ourselves out of the pews rather than them into the pews. 

                I do like Inviting Committees.  I like them because some people are very fearful and feel inadequate around Evangelism.  “I don’t know what to say,” they plead.  Remember, as well, that for a church to grow we do need people won to Christ and then incorporated into his family but we also need simply people to come to church.  An Inviting Committee can focus on getting people to church for the first time.  Someone else can focus on getting them to come a second time.  And they can focus after that on them getting assimilated.  But an Inviting Committee can simply help everyone invite to church or some subset of church – join me for the Sunday School class, join me for our Habitat Saturday, join us for our pot-luck and speaker about Jesus’ leadership principles, join me for Christmas Eve service, join us for our new message series that sounds so interesting, join us our Bingo and board game night, …. 

                What it takes to invite someone to church or a subset of church is a basically good feeling about your church.  If the people are off-putting or the preaching is bad or the AC doesn’t work or the sound system doesn’t amplify right or the coffee is too weak, … then confidence evacuates the asker.  But most any church that simply tries to love people, then we are inviting people into a loving place.  That’s it and pretty good in the most simple form. 

                Invite away!