By Des Smith
This Sunday is ‘Bring-a-friend-to-church Sunday’. You may think, ‘Why didn’t I hear about this before? This wasn’t advertised!’ That’s because every Sunday is bring-a-friend-to-church Sunday. Next week’s will be too and the week after that. The fact is, one of the best and easiest ways we can share the gospel with friends and family is simply to invite them to church.
This is not often how we think.
We are less than a month out from Easter – that wonderful weekend of the year when we remember and celebrate the clearest demonstration of God’s love for his people – sending his son to the cross for those, like me, who don’t deserve this incredible act of grace.
The Easter weekend is also the weekend when the greatest number unbelieving folk walk into our gathering. Get that – they walk into Trinity City and 5pm Church under their own steam.
So how can you plan to make the most of this opportunity – not only for those that you meet that weekend at church, but also for those friends, family and colleagues who you might find will easily accept your invitation.
Here are some suggestions:
It is invitation time!
Christmas is coming, now the question is: who is coming to Christmas?!
For some of us the idea of inviting someone to celebrate Christmas with you is a no brainer. It is what friends do. If Christmas is important then it is important to have friends of all walks of life celebrating with you!
For some, this doesn’t feel so easy!
Here is a challenge – try to invite just five people to something for Christmas. (some would say, ‘just five’ – fine you invite more).
Inviting takes many forms and giving this some thought may actually present a myriad of possible ways to invite someone – and hopefully one of them at least would be manageable for you!
Want some tips….
Christmas is coming (‘Already – please, it comes around so fast’!)
Some of us will be more active than others when it comes to inviting family, friends and colleagues, but let me say that Christmas is one of the easiest times to invite people to church things – we are helped that the retail calendar has been arranged around gospel events (i.e. Christmas and Easter).
There are three intentional steps which will help in inviting someone.
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