How should churches gear up for the most popular Sunday of the Christian calendar?

3/21/13       Cynthia            about 25

One year, my church had printed hundreds of invitations to our Easter Sunday service to be handed out all around the neighborhood. I felt reluctant and skeptical but agreed to give it a try. Outside our train station during rush hour, a young lady named Cynthia helped me understand why I felt this way...

My purpose was just to hand out the invitations to the crowds getting off the trains, but between trains the crowd had dispersed and she was left waiting for her ride, so I struck up a conversation, asking about her beliefs.

She had grown up as a Mormon in Kentucky but now has given up on organized religion, saying she is comfortable with her own private beliefs. As we talked it was clear she still holds to her Mormon beliefs, though she isn’t currently following them.

Of course, with her Mormon frame of reference, my efforts were seen as mere proselytizing – trying to win converts to join my church – rather than truly caring for her as a person. The fact that I had given her a church invitation before talking with her probably didn’t help me to convince her otherwise.

By contrast, in my normal witnessing efforts I usually begin with questions about where the person is at spiritually and then I try to help them take the next step of faith needed in their relationship with God. I might try to help an atheist understand the foolishness of claiming there is no Creator, or an agnostic to understand that although we can’t know God by our own efforts, He can and does reveal Himself to us.

By taking a little time to hear their stories, we can tailor a personal and individual message to a wide range of people: the disillusioned; the false converts; followers of works-based religions; the sensual and worldly minded; those who imagine or cobble together various ideas about God; the young believer in need of encouragement and/or a church home; the more mature believer needing to be challenged to share their faith....the list goes on and on.

We need to be ministers of the Gospel, in the spirit of Paul’s admonition to “become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22)

Cynthia didn’t respond as I might like – at best I think I might have helped her question some of her unbiblical presuppositions – and while we talked I probably could have handed out 50 church invitations instead.

God may very well use our invitations to reach some people. I pray He does. But Jesus didn’t command us just to go out and invite people to church to hear the pastor share the Gospel – we need to share it ourselves! In fact, the job of both pastors and evangelists is to “equip his people for works of service”. (Eph.4)

Let’s not leave the task of ministering the Gospel just to the “gifted” evangelists on the street or the “professional” pastors at the church building – it’s a joy we can all be a part of!