I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about church and evangelism lately. Maybe it’s because Easter is here. We’ve traditionally seen church attendance rise on Easter Sunday and so we throw out token Easter invites in hopes someone will come to church with us. We might even sprinkle church invites throughout other weeks to our co-workers and neighbors but as soon as the invitation to attend church has been offered we suddenly feel off the hook. The ball is in their court. I’ve done my job because after all they’ve got to get to church to hear the Gospel but I can’t force them to go.
I read an article by Ed Stetzer this week that was interesting. He says the following:
“For several decades we have focused on come and see, invest and invite, bring your friends to church by attracting them with a great program,” says Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research. “We call that attractional ministry. Now we are facing the reality that fewer unchurched people are willing to visit a Christian church. This should compel us to embrace a go and tell – or incarnational – approach”, he says. Should we invite our friends to church? Sure. But should we be, do and tell the gospel to people in culture? You bet. It’s not only biblical, but it is even more essential today as our culture grows increasingly resistant to the church. While unchurched people are open to relationships, few church members are intentionally investing time developing relationships with non-Christians”
It is not enough to just invite people to church. Like it or not, church attendance and commitment is on a rapid decline. Instead of looking down on people for not accepting our invitations to church what if we prayerfully and strategically share the Gospel with those around us ourselves.
Getting unsaved friends/neighbors in our church doors can’t be the primary goal. Opening our eyes to those around us and sharing Jesus from our own experiences with Him and what we know to be true of God from scripture needs to be our starting point. It doesn’t matter if you just got saved yesterday. Your starting point is simply telling people around you what happened yesterday even if you find yourself saying things like, ‘I can’t totally explain it.’ We won’t ever be able to fully explain the Holy Spirit so the answer is not to avoid conversations about Jesus just because we can’t explain everything about Him or His Spirit. We simply start with what we’ve received from Jesus at this point in life and we share that piece even if it seems uncomfortable and even if we can’t fully explain it.
As we grow in our walk with Christ by reading scripture and seeing His Spirit work inside us then we have our next thing to share. And sometimes it doesn’t even come in the form of “sharing”. Sometimes it’s a change of heart through spiritual growth and an opportunity for explanation arises. Maybe it’s the fact that in the break room you don’t participate in the typical gossip session about your boss because what you read in the book of James changed your heart. You’re now guarding your tongue because your eyes were opened to the fact that even such a small portion of our bodies can set the whole course for our life – for good or for bad. So now instead of participating in the daily gossip fest you decide to say something positive about your boss. Your friends take notice because that’s not how you normally are and they ask you about it. You have a chance to share what the Holy Spirit is revealing to you through his word. At first they might think you’re weird. You may get the roll of eyes and comments about being holier than thou. That’s okay though as long as you don’t really feel you’re better than they are. Don’t let this stop you from sharing Christ when you are asked about something that is a direct result of Christ working in your life.
So lets keep inviting our friends, neighbors and coworkers to church because church is a beautiful design by God and nothing can compare to healthy Body life. But before we do let’s ask ourselves what else we’ve done to show and share Christ ourselves. Don’t save it for the preacher on Sunday mornings because stats are showing that he’s not preaching to most of the unsaved people in our communities. We are.
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