Quit Inviting People to Church

I grew up in a church that had a planned “Invite a Neighbor Sunday” and attended two others that had a “Pack the Pews” and “Plum Full Sunday”. I don’t know if the latter was started by plum lovers or if it just sounded more appropriate for a rural church. As best as I can remember they were all great successes in filling up the building...for one Sunday. We put on our best clothes, we had a potluck lunch, we spent a couple of weeks reminding the membership we would have lots of people there and needed to be friendly. We did it up right, got lots of people to show up, patted ourselves on the back then came back the following week to the regular people doing the regular things.

I grew up with the gospel of attendance. “Do not forsake the assembly.” Wow, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that spoken as if it were the 11th command-ment. I was taught to be at“ church” but somewhere along the way, the message got lost that I was supposed to BE THE CHURCH. It’s as if someone has confused church, the body of believers, as church, the big place where we focus on God for 3 services a week. In that time, we have started inviting people to a somewhat organized, somewhat dysfunctional group of people where the invited are supposed to find God. Is anyone else seeing the fallacy of this?

Let’s try this. Invite people to encounter Christ. Invite people to see what a disciple really looks like, what a disciple talks like, what a disciple cares about, what a disciple puts their money and time and energy towards. Invite people to meet the church that is looking back at them, eye to eye, face to face. Jesus didn’t tell Peter he was going to erect a building on a rock. He told Peter he was going to build the church on the confession that Jesus is the Son of God. People don’t need to see how we do worship. They MUST see our confession of faith lived out in our lives daily, consistently, full of love and grace and compassion. People need to see the church Jesus wants established, an active body reaching out, touching lives, pouring out what he is wanting to pour into us. The gates of Hades will blow apart the building on Main Street but it can do nothing to the soul focused on God, full of faith and hope for the victory that belongs to those who are in Christ.

I recently had a conversation with someone about a friend of theirs who doesn’t like churchy people. Sadly, what the friend doesn’t understand is that people who meet at a building and talk about those who don’t show up are not churchy people. Churchy people should be the folks who look like Jesus in the eyes of others because they are being the church and acting like Christ to those around them. When Paul tells husbands to love their wives like Christ loved the church, he didn’t mean they should love their wives 3 times a week. He meant, and even said, they should be ready to give their lives (death to self) to their wives. We are all called to the same with the people around us. We don’t love them when they are in a big building with us. No, we love them when their lives are falling apart. We love them when they are struggling with pornography. We love them when their spouse walked out on them, when they’ve had an affair, when they are struggling with materialism, when they are struggling with hatred, when they are struggling with drug abuse. We love them in the middle of a messy life. That’s church! That’s the body of believers showing their belief in a Christ who can heal the broken. 

I encourage you as I encourage myself, don’t invite someone to church. Be the church in their lives. Be a reflection of Christ in the middle of their mess, their pain, their frailty. Be the church and people showing up to meet in a building will take care of itself.

Grace and peace.

Jeff Jones
Decatur, Texas