Think About This

THINK ABOUT THIS

Our church’s focus for the coming year (starting now) is outreach. We want to help people come to faith in Christ and come to our church. We want to build the kingdom of God and Community Church.  To that end I will be devoting much of my efforts towards planning events and activities to which you can invite your friends and neighbors. The fact that we need to grow is obvious. 

It’s well documented that there are two times of year when unchurched people will come to a service: Christmas and Easter. Many people like to come to church to sing carols and think about simpler times when they first heard the message of Christ’s birth. According to Dr. Thom Rainer's book The Unchurched Next Door, 82% of unchurched people are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited. Sounds great doesn’t it? But here’s the problem. Only 2% of church members ever invite someone to church in a given year. Seven out of ten unchurched people have never been invited to church in their whole lives. Will you help me fix that? Invite someone to come to our church this month. 

I’ll be preaching the following sermons:

        December 11  The Meaning of Christmas Micah 5:2-5

        December 18  The Ugly Necessity of Christmas  Matthew 2:1-18

        December 24  God Is With Us  Matthew 1:18-25  (6:45 PM service)

        December 25  What Child is This? Isaiah 9:6 (10:45 AM service)

Inviting people to come and see isn’t a new idea. When Nathaniel began to argue whether Jesus could be anybody worth hearing because he came from Nazareth, Philip didn't argue back. He just said, "Come and see." The woman at the well did a similar thing. She didn't give her friends a lecture on eight reasons why they should believe that Jesus is the Christ. She just said, "Come and see."

You can do that as well. Invite someone. Offer to give them a ride. Give them one of the blue church business cards in the lobby.  One of our members did that yesterday and someone came to church with her. Imagine if we all did it.