Many times, as Christians, we look for a magic bullet for evangelism and for our church family to grow. We look for that elusive perfect pastor, guest minister, program, or youth director who is going to attract people in to our church. Yet, time and time again studies have shown that most people (85% typically), visit a church for the first time because of a personal invitation. Someone – a friend, a family member, a colleague – invited them to church. Yes, inviting people is the undisputed best method of reaching people for Jesus and increasing attendance in church, which is the first step toward building disciples for Jesus.

Now it is true that many people do not view inviting someone to church as the same thing as inviting someone to Jesus (what we typically call evangelism or soul winning). But running and crawling are not the same either. Yet no one runs without first crawling. Similarly, if you have never learned to invite someone to church (i.e. crawl) how could you ever invite such a person to Jesus (i.e. run)? For so many of us, inviting someone to church is a necessary first step to becoming someone who regularly invites people to Jesus.

 

So, if you would like to be someone who invites people to Jesus, start by inviting people to church regularly. Here are a few steps to help you get started:

 

1. Intercede: talk to God daily about your desire to invite someone  to church every week. What you want to engage in is a spiritual activity and your natural flesh will war against it. So start by asking God to help you overcome fear and to help you recognize opportunities to extend an invitation to someone. 
2. Identify: make a list of 4 or 5 people whom you would like to invite to church and then start praying for them. Ask God to bless them. Salvation is the GREATEST blessing from God and so when you pray for someone to be blessed, the first thing God usually does is to get them saved. Ask God to soften their hearts and open their eyes to the message of the gospel Jesus. Ask him to give you opportunities to demonstrate God’s love to them and for opportunities to extend an invitation to them. This step is very important as without a target, your aim will be unfocused. 
3. Invest: Begin to look for opportunities to get closer to these people.  Make the sacrifice to invest some time into their lives. Call them. Go out for lunch with them. Go shopping with them. Assist them with an errand. Find practical ways to demonstrate God’s love to them. Listen to them. Make the sacrifice of love. One powerful way to invest in someone life is to pray for them one-on-one or over the phone after they share with you a challenge or difficulty they are facing. Prayer is one of the most powerful gift you can give another person. Remember, people do not care what you know until they know that you care. 
4. Invite: as you can see, invitation is the last step and many times it will come naturally. It may come when you are discussing plans for the weekend. It may be when we are starting a new sermon series in church or when we have a special program. It may be right after you have prayed with them on an issue. It may even be them asking you for ideas of a church to attend or your plans for the weekend. 

 

Begin to practice these four steps today. Remember, most people would come to church if only someone would invite them!  At Grace Life Center, we have made it even easier for you to extend invitations to your friends via email. Simply pick a graphic and send with an invite message to a friend using our Church Inviter widget found here: https://churchinviter.com/widget/1857

 

God bless you as you make an eternal difference in the life of someone.