Building an Invite Culture in your Church

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Growing a church isn't easy. It takes dedication, hard work and good planning. Even though there are tons of books and blogs out there about it, many churches still struggle in attracting new people. Despite the latest greatest growth strategies, friends inviting friends is still the most effective way to bring new people to church. When people become intentional about bringing their unchurched friends to church, they get to witness life change up close and personal...and when that happens, the church moves into a culture of invite. 

Here’s three things to help build an invite culture in your church: 

  1. Design a gospel-centered invite culture
  2. Determine your invite platforms
  3. Develop people to be path leaders 


Creating the Design 

A healthy invite culture must be designed around the why more than the what. When we focus on the why, it removes us from the what and automatically answers the who, because the why is always about people who aren't following Jesus. It's about the gospel, which means unchurched people become the "who" by default. When a church begins to value inviting unchurched people, their culture begins to shift; because whatever a church values eventually shapes their culture. Suddenly preaching styles, worship styles, internal language and yes, invite strategies are designed and evaluated while looking through the lens of the person who needs Jesus. 


Determining the Platforms

In addition to a gospel-centered design, you will need to determine and leverage invite platforms. There are natural platforms that happen every year like Easter, Christmas, the new year and mom’s day. In addition to natural platforms, it’s important to create other platforms, such as hot topic series, family series or create a community-based event. Invite platforms provide opportunities for congregants to invite their friends to something besides church; and they still hear the gospel. Congregants are more comfortable inviting their unchurched friends to an Easter drama, a Christmas play or a themed weekend. Pastors and leaders often make the mistake of treating sheep like shepherds. It’s usually easy for pastors and leaders to invite people to church; however, the average lay person can find it uncomfortable. When you give them the right motive (life change) and something to invite their friends to (the right platform); you'll soon see new faces and new opportunities to reach people for Jesus. 


Developing Path Leaders
Eventually, the goal of an invite culture is to move congregants from inviters to path leaders. New people showing up isn't the endgame. The real win is when church members walk alongside their friends on a journey to help them follow Jesus more deeply. Another word for this is discipleship. When people invite their friends to join them on a discipleship pathway, lives drastically change. Imagine people saying to their friends, "Follow me to small groups, connect class or our partnership class. I'll go with you!" 

In order for this to happen well, a clear pathway is critical. New people showing up is always awesome, but profits little if there aren't clear next steps to help people follow Jesus and become a disciple. 

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 26, 2017 at 1:14 AM

    I believe, the right thing is to respect everyone's religion doesn't matter whether you belong to that particular religion or not. The church financing in USA types helps churches.

    ReplyDelete
  2. online dissertation writing serviceDecember 30, 2017 at 10:25 AM

    Building an Invite Culture in your Church, Wow this is really amazing and I will love to be the part of this culture for sure. Great work

    ReplyDelete
  3. Travis SmithMay 4, 2018 at 11:55 AM

    I have read so many articles or reviews about the blogger lovers but this post is really a nice paragraph, keep it up. facebook log in

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownMay 29, 2019 at 8:05 AM

    a ver novel and noble idea to invite others to your church, but this should no be done for reminding others ( who don't follow your sect, or religion) of how they are led astray and how you are on right path. Self-rightehousnes should be discouraged when inviting people of other faiths to your church. Visit our cheap essay writing service uk for remarkable academic outcomes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Grace EllaJuly 8, 2020 at 12:51 AM

    Building a peaceful environment in the church is not a piece of cake. You need to pay full concentration for decorating it. Conduct deep research for creating the design. After searching good design I have determined the platforms. Thanks for sharing information that developing a path leader can build invite culture in the church. Assignment writing services

    ReplyDelete

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