As we've reviewed and taken in Bob Farr's, Doug Anderson's, and Kay Kotan's ideas about sharing our faith, we did so in a progression, from the "easiest" way to evangelize, to ways that pull us more and more out of our comfort zones. Get Their Name uses the analogy of education: 1) We started with elementary evangelism (relational evangelism through service) through to 2) middle school evangelism (sharing our faith in a small group) through to 3) high school evangelism (sharing our faith by testimony in worship).
Farr, Anderson, and Kotan then share about undergraduate college evangelism - inviting others to attend worship.
You might be thinking that inviting others to worship would be an earlier stage in sharing our faith. After all, an invitation to attend church would seem to be just that - an invitation. No faith sharing with that person or persons, just "Come to church with me!"
But the statistics on church invitation, and this was big surprise to me, was that the average United Methodist invites someone to come to worship once every 38 years!
Take that in for a moment...
In Get Their Name, FAK share that one reason that people aren't successful in inviting others to church is that we mistake a "wish" for an actual "invitation." Typically, we ask someone "Hey, I'd like to come to worship with me sometime" and leave the invitation at that... which is more like a wish. FAK suggest that a true invitation consists of 3 characteristics:
1) It is personal (face to face, phone to phone, Facebook to Facebook);
2) It is specific ("Hey, I want to invite you to come with me to our 11 am worship service at Community on March 23, and we can have lunch afterwards.");
3) It is relational ("Hey, I want you to come to worship with me at 11 am this Sunday. Can I pick you up?")
A second reason why people don't invite others is the fear of having to answer possible followup questions to an invitation to come to church. "Thanks for the invite. But why should I come to worship with you? Why do you go to worship?" How would you answer those questions? It's because of questions posed like these where experience in middle school and high school evangelism is very helpful, because you've had practice in sharing your faith with others.
A third reason for people not inviting others to worship is fear or lack of confidence... they worry about bad preaching, poor worship, poor music, and poor hospitality. People don't want to risk their weekday friendships on the possibility of their guest having a bad experience in worship. That's why churches, including ours, strive to build a culture of radical hospitality and passionate worship.
FAK actually recommend a particular process for inviting people to worship, and I will share that process in part two of this post.
What are your thoughts?
