Saturday, March 10, 2018
Hey Doc … I’m trying to gauge how warm our church is. I feel that it is a super encouraging place to be, but some visitors are telling me otherwise. Any thoughts?
DRF—Here is my simple litmus test. How many times have your members invited you to a small group or class? In sharing this litmus test with an elder recently, he said, “never.” He added, “maybe our church needs some help in being more welcoming!”
Announcements from the stage are fine. Their effectiveness often is in the 1% to 3% range. Consider that if you have 1,000 people in the audience, an announcement may get 10 to 30 responses. What would happen if 500 people regularly invited folks to their groups? I would hazard to say that over a year, your groups would double in size. The warmth of a personal and face-to-face invitation is effective.
