80% of a normal congregation will not invite their friends to church even on a special Sunday why?

The issue is that “your congregational culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Culture tells us how we do things around here and we stick to it. Frankly, also, we are a generation of Christians that has not had the practice of invitation. We have to work out why the congregation are not inviting their friends or are not going to invite their friends. This is what I call “disturbing the ground.” Before a farmer goes to sow in the seed, the farmer will take a tractor and plough up the ground. Unless this is done effectively the seed will not be planted properly. The way we think in church right now is the ground. These are some of the ways we think

we are suffering with our act of worship
we are disappointed with last person saying no to us
we have no friends
we are reticent/shy
our services and people are unpredictable
we fear rejection

We need to disturb the way we are thinking by turning the soil over. This allows the possibility for Godly thinking to be planted.

Unless we do this important piece of work, all the strategy of enthusiastic invitation will just be consumed by the present culture which fears and resists invitation.

I once asked soneone at a seminar  why she didn’t ever invite. After being frozen for half-a-minute she said that it just didn’t feel right. She is not alone in being frozen in fear. It is not the failure which is holding us back it is the anticipation of rejection.

Timidity is an affliction that can be cured, but it needs to be recognized as a problem first. So before launching a strategy of an Invitation Sunday understand your culture by asking why don’t we invite in this congregation and then teach into the answers you hear.

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