The Simplest Way to Get Church Members to Invite People to Church

Last updated on: May 2, 2016 at 7:09 am by Josh Daffern

The Simplest Way to Get Church Members to Invite People to Church 2016-05-02T07:09:05-06:00 Josh Daffern

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Think of you daughter’s fourth-grade school play. She’s been working hard for weeks but let’s be honest, she’s ten. You’re expecting a semi-awkward production, several forgotten lines, and a lurching momentum that finally drags everyone across the finish line. But that’s okay. She’s your daughter and you’re proud of her. You’ve lowered your expectations and can excuse the lack of professionalism. You’ll always support her and will be at every performance. But that doesn’t mean you’re inviting your boss or your neighbor down the street. Without that family connection, it’s tough to ask casual friends to endure the lower standards of quality that you’d see in a child’s play or dance recital. That’s why childrens’ plays and dance recitals are usually full of family and not many others. The quality just isn’t there to attract people who have no family connection to the event.

I believe that same principle lies at the heart of why so many people fail to invite their friends, neighbors and co-workers to church. Pastors like me will plead and pray, convict and cajole members in an attempt to get them to invite their friends. We’ll tell them what to say, we’ll sign our church up for outreach campaigns, we’ll pay thousands of dollars for local advertising and marketing. And yet for most churches, not much happens. At the end of the day, many pastors justify their church’s lack of outreach on the spiritual condition of the people. Conveniently (for the pastor), the ultimate blame lies somewhere else. Yet I firmly believe the answer is much simpler than that. The simplest way to get church members to invite people to church is to create church services that members want to invite their friends to.

I’m a life-long church goer, and too many church services have the quality of a fourth-grade school play. The music/instrumentation is cringe-inducingly bad, no one on stage looks like they actually want to be there, the same people do the same things out of rote and tradition, the sermon is a spiritual sedative, putting most listeners to sleep. There’s no rhythm, there’s no passion, there’s no excellence, there’s no life. Church members will be faithful to come because that’s their home, that’s their family. They can overlook low quality of the experience because of their family connection. But they’re not inclined to invite their friends and co-workers any more than to a child’s school play or dance recital.

Pastors like me can put the onus on the lack of spirituality in our church members all we want, but I firmly believe that if we simply create services at a level of quality that people actually want to invite their friends to, people will actually invite their friends to it. I believe this because I’m living it. I am grateful to pastor a church that is growing, and I can trace 99% of our guests to a current attender that invited them. All the time, effort and energy our church staff has put into creating irresistible church services is paying off huge dividends.

QUESTION: Have you experienced this principle play out in churches that you’ve been a part of?

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