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Luke 14:16 – A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. (NIV)
There are many times when people are invited to attend certain functions, receptions, family reunions, weddings, etc. But not often do we get invited to come to a certain church.
During my pipeline construction years, we lived in a mobile home, which was moved from place to place by the company that I worked for, as I was the office manager. In 1963, we moved from Athens, Ohio, to Greenup, Kentucky, USA. We had rented some vacant land, and our office trailers, warehouse trailers, and about a hundred trucks and various other pieces of equipment were parked there, as well as two house trailers: the superintendent's and ours. After our trailer was parked, and while I was lying on my back underneath it hooking up the sewer, water, and electricity lines, I suddenly saw a man lying on the ground beside the trailer. He introduced himself and said that he was the owner of the local ambulance service and a member of a certain church in that small town. He offered his services and then invited us to attend the church that he belonged to.
I had never been asked so directly to attend a certain church. In those years, as we moved from place to place, we did look for a church to attend. As a result, we attended a variety of Christian churches, but this was the first time that we actually received a direct invitation.
To be honest, I find inviting people to church to be such a daunting task, as many of us do. We wonder, if they did come, whether they would be happy, whether the service would mean anything to them, whether they would come again, or whether it would really make a difference in their lives. We have all gone through it, I'm sure.
I admired the man in Greenup. I was surprised and impressed that he would invite us to come to church, as he did not know us, and we had been there only about an hour or so. It is indeed difficult to invite people to church. Perhaps, we need to go back further in the process. When we establish relationships with people who are not yet Christians, we should seek ways to gain their trust and show them through our words and our way of life that we are different. Hopefully, they will ask about the faith we have, because it works for us. And then, when we feel the time is right, we can ask them to come to church and learn more about our faith.
Prayer: Our Father in heaven, there are so many people who need to know about You and about Jesus, so many people who need to hear the good news of salvation. We pray that You will give us the boldness and the ability to tell others about You, each one of us in our own way. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Great post Joel and spot on.
Let’s all pray for a person we can invite to show up right in front of us!!
Thanks Joel for sharing your experience with us. Praying for all of us to have the wisdom regarding the right time to extend an invitation. Blessings.
Just to let you know, our church in BC visits new owners of homes in the area and gives them our brochure and a $5.00 Tim card as well as invite them to join us in worship.
Dear Joel,
Your devotional brought tears to my eyes as I thought of the gentleman who invited you to church. We really do have a lot to offer to others about our faith. May we become bold and step out as effective witnesses for Him. Thanks for writing.
Hi Joel. I liked your devotional today. I recently preached a sermon that had these 3 points 1) Don’t invite people to church. (most people are turned off by “church”)
2) Ask instead if they are a “Jesus follower.” (and be ready to go from there to “evangelize”)
3) Share the Kingdom vision, and Jesus will eventually take them to church..
(MI USA)
Hello Joel,
Your devotional today reflects our concern here at our church for getting to know our neighbours, too. Over the past few months, we have been reaching out to our neighbourhood on prayer walks and with smiles of encouragement. Through activities on our front lawn and years of international dinners to which we are all free to invite friends, new folk have felt welcomed.
With the declining number of members, however, our energy and resources have been diminishing over the past few years, we have been urged to march on to the future with the renewed energy of our newer members of Asian origin. And now, with another church sharing our facilities, we are enjoying further opportunities to reach out to our neighbours: shared services on special occasions, a weekly ESL class open to any newcomer, and hopes for Bible study together.
Gratefully and prayerfully yours.