You see it around Easter and Christmas. The church population grows a bit. Believers who do not fellowship come to assemble with other Christians to worship and pay tribute on those special days. I will describe the scene across the world’s churches. The pastor of the church looks out over the crowd and smiles and exclaims "I wish we had a crowd like this every Sunday". The next week the crowd is markedly smaller. A few individuals and families come back for a few weeks or months. A small number of folks may even become members; then, some begin the drift away.
What’s the problem then? We, the regular members of our churches need to look no further than the nearest mirror. Members
of churches are so ingrained in their duties to the fellowship body
they are "short’ with new folks who try to engage them in conversation. We are about 60% of this drifting problem. Are we putting our best foot forward to keep folks in fellowship? Perhaps that "best" foot forward is the problem. We are careful
to show the non fellowshipping Christian, or undecided soul the path to
a spiritually alive life and we demonstrate how a Christian is supposed
to live by example. We give them; sermons,
prayer, the passion of Christ DVD, wisdom, telephone calls, help with
food, help with children, books to read, devotionals to listen to,
conferences to attend, fellowship dinners, small groups, bible studies,
group trips to Christian concerts. ALL great things that every church should do….alas…they drift away.
Perhaps we have forgotten something…
This goes specifically for those who were blessed enough to grow up in home that echoed the precious words and songs of our savior.
If you did not grow up in a Godly home, but found salvation I will remind you.
Folks who do not fellowship are either disenchanted with church, non believers, or the spiritually confused. We have got to start being real y’all! If we portray ourselves as one who zips through life with no struggles in our Christian walk we are inadvertently being a little bit deceitful. We are also displaying a life that seems impossible to live up to by the non churched individual.
DO you really want to gain a church member?
Start by being open. I believe that one of the first things we should do is discover who the new person is through conversation. Once we gain some insight on the person’s life we need to be open about ours! Common since and the ability gauge personalities are vital here. If you are raised in church and life wasn’t that bad of a struggle you may want to pair the new person off with someone who struggled with sin in the past.
Commonality is key!! If the person is a partier you may want to talk about your beer bashing days and point out how it was wrong. You might even want to bust out the picture of you passed out on the couch with the kiss t shirt on with a beer cans all over the place. Share your thoughts! Tell them of your PAST and current struggles. Tell them about the grace of Christ! Tell them they are saved forever if they believe in Christ. Make sure they know that after salvation sin still has consequence in their present life….even consequence unrelated to the sin committed.
Some just do not understand that Christ died for sins past, present, and future. Once someone has believed and the Holy Spirit has occupied them the individual has to become incredibly black hearted through the self decision of their free will to loose salvation. Once someone knows the truth they are changed for life and the ability to be evil is diminished greatly.
John 10 verse 27 to 30
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.
I was the one who was un churched. I was the one who visited a church and saw all the "clicks" engaged in conversation, NONE bothering to pause for a minute to extend the common courtesy of a hand shake to a new comer. Do you have any clue how awkward it feel to come to church as a single man who is alone and not knowing anyone? Do you know how it feels to try to start a conversation with someone and you get the feeling you are distracting them from their "church job" and conversation with their fishing buddy.
Do you want more folks in your fellowship? Do you want to increase the Harvest of souls for Christ?
Read this blog twice then.
Christ’s Servant,
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