Churches that want to grow often ask me, "how can I reach more people?" I love this question, and there's so much a church can do to reach more people:
Online Ministry
Bridge Events
Building Community Connections
Focusing on Families with Young Children
But, in all of this, there's a piece that I've discovered that is a key to unlocking the growth that God wants to send you.
Inviteability
Yup. I recognize that's not even a real word. But, it's about being intentional about having your church people invite their friends and family. Taking multiple opportunities to train, equip and resource your people with the tools they need to invite the people they connect with to join them is what growing churches do to reach more people.
Here are some ways your church can be more 'inviteable.'
Promote the next message series before it starts. At the end of each message, take time and talk about what the next message or series will be about. Produce postcards that people can take to invite their friends. Be specific in the problem that this series will address (i.e., marriage, parenting kids, finances etc.) and make sure that it's something that a non-Christian would be interested in learning more about.
Teach your people to invite. We tell people to invite, but do we teach them how to do it? Take time in your service and do a little skit where you spell out what it would look like to invite someone to church. Help your people understand the spiritual implications of this and work through what it looks like to invite someone to church. We have a whole training on this HERE.
Give people tools to invite. If you want people to invite, you need to give them physical and digital tools to invite. Be consistent in producing quality tools to help your people invite their friends, family, neighbours and co-workers. Remember to create shareable digital tools that make sense to a non-believer. If you have a link, make sure it works. Thinking through the interaction over the piece will help you generate the right content for the right purpose.
Create 'inviteable' things. People have no problem inviting people to things they'll know they'll enjoy. This means we need to create things that are easily 'inviteable.' Not everything is easy to invite someone to. Sometimes, we don't know enough about what we're supposed to invite others to, so we don't do it. You need to think through how 'inviteable' this event, message series, or program is and then communicate as much information to the invitee as possible so they can properly invite someone.
Don't just tell your people to invite, model it, teach it, train on it, tell stories about it and celebrate it. People inviting people is a key to growth and reaching new people.
Jeremiah works as an Effectiveness Coach with the ABNWT District of the PAOC. He is a passionate and creative leader who believes that the church is the hope of the world. He uses collaboration, innovation, and inspiration to challenge churches and their leadership to engage in the only mission Jesus ever sent his church on: making disciples.