I thoroughly enjoyed reading Church Marketing 101 by Richard Reisling. This book is a rendering of some of the important steps that small churches can implement to ensure growth and increase retention rates. Reisling suggests that there are basically three factors in church growth:
- Lateral/denominational – these are Christians from other congregations.
- Vertical/relationships – these are persons invited by members and are transformed by the Christian experience.
- Curbside – these are persons who chose to visit without a personal invitation.
According to Reisling, the most sustainable factor in growth is the vertical which involves members inviting new people. However, he indicates that most members don’t invite others because they have not come to terms with six questions that are germane. I share these with you:
- Will my friend feel welcomed? (hospitable)
- Will my friend fit in? (comfortable)
- Can I feel confident that I know how the service will turn out? (consistent)
- Will my friend get something out of the experience? (relevant)
- Will my friend understand it? (understandable)
- Will anything that could seem strange be explained through Scripture? (sensitive)
My guess is that these questions reveal some honest questions that could be the talking points for a small group concerned about personal evangelism.
What do you think?
December 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hi, Oliver
I remember a mega-church pastor speaking to Nazarene DSs said that if regular-attending church members don’t invite their friends it’s because they are “mildly embarrassed” about what is going on in their church. People will invite friends on their own if they like what’s going on.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Oliver, United States citizens are very resourceful and particularly inventive. If we want to represent every country on that limited space infront of Headquarters we tan find a way. The question then is this: Do we, want to and why not. Even with a limited budget we can have a tapestry of flags. One flag made up of little flags, of all the nations in which the church operates. Pass the flag around the world like an olympic torch, and let each country sew on its own little flag. It will focus the church onto the oneness that we claim, and we can permanently display our oneness attitude at our oneness place in Kansas. Just a thought.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I tell my members the same thing as a pastor…of course I invite persons to church and they come and stay…I think the author is correct…how to solve it is another matter…everyone will always have one item in the list that they use as an excuse or a reason for not inviting friends…what I wonder about is why would anyone keep attending a church which they would not invite others to; especially friends and family…I would have left sooner than later…the list gives me a reference point for assessment of community where we gather to worship
December 29th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Walter, with respect to the reason people would stay connected to a church to which they would not invite others points to the heart of the problem. Most members feel that they have invested too much to the history of the congregation to leave. It is their church and they like it the way it is.
The sad commentary is that most people who are entrenched in the non-growth of their congregation usually say that numbers don’t count. My answer is that numbers translate to SOULS and souls count.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I would tend to agree that most people do actually go through this check list in their head before they invite someone to their church.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I was a member of the laity for 30 years and struggled with this question. I wanted to see more people come to Christ-my family members, friends- but often felt embarrassed by what went on in the church. Yes, I did invite and some did get saved but I was constrained during quite a number of seasons because of embarrassment.
I did not leave because as Dr. oliver said, I had invested many years of my life and I truly love the doctrine of the COTN. Numbers did count to me though and I am saddened by what is taking place in many of our churches.
The present generation is more intellectual than years ago and are turned off by what we tolerated for many years. Something must be done and soon!
March 4th, 2010 at 3:27 am
Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.