If you want to double your class every two years or less, give Friday nights to Jesus. Invite your friends over. Play cards. Tell jokes. Enjoy dessert. Laugh. Have a good time. But most of all, include an outsider couple. Ministry has never been so much fun. (See previous article here.)
George Barna’s research indicates that 7 percent of the people who do not attend church plan to do so within the next year. If churches consistently gave Friday nights to Jesus, we could see 90 percent of those people stay. That is, at least 5 percent of the unchurched would come into the church each year. Another 33 percent of the unchurched are open to attending church, according to Barna. The most likely thing to attract them is the invitation of a friend. So when they do come, we need to have a strategy to get them to stay. We need to become a Velcro church rather than a Teflon church.
Rick Warren explains, “For your church to grow you must be nice to people when they show up!” and, “People are not interested in a friendly church; they are looking for friends.” The best way to make friends is to give Friday nights to Jesus.
Friends. That is what we were to the couples we invited to our house. We were friends to them, and they were friends to us. When we had our babies, they were at the hospital. They became our friends. William Hendricks discovered that people who leave the church often do so because they hunger for community. “They still dream of being a part of an intimate group of believers,” he writes. “They want to share life together with a handful of others where they can know and be known.” Giving Friday nights to Jesus creates the kind of community that people long for.
Adapted from You Can Double Your Class in Two Years or Less
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