Archive for Evangelism

Connect with Prospective Members

You know the scene. You have witnessed it happen time and again. A church guest walks into your Sunday School class for the first time. The excitement grows, but so does the anxiety. The questions begin to crowd your mind? Did I prepare well enough? Will Jill be pushy as usual? Will the guest feel overwhelmed? Will they enjoy the class and come back?

These questions and more come to our mind when trying to connect with prospective members. We want prospective members to join our class for many reasons, the most important being that we truly desire them to grow in their relationship to Jesus. So how can we connect with these prospective members? Below are a few ways we can connect with prospective members who visit our churches.

  1. Make a Joyful First Impression

While welcoming facilities are important, they are not as important as a joyful first impression. Guests do not expect nor really need a gift bag, but what they do need is joy. From the greeters to the ushers, to the members, show the joy of knowing and growing in Jesus. Joy is inherent in the church and can be felt by those who visit. Help them feel and know the joy of following Jesus through genuine smile, laughter, and insightful questions.

  • Make an Intentional Appeal

Many of our guests do not know the various options for Sunday School and since most Sunday School times take place before the service, they do not have the opportunity visit the same day they attend worship. One of the ways to help people connect is for the pastor and/or person who is making the announcements to share what is happening in Sunday School. Avoid listing classes. Highlight a class each Sunday and share what God is doing through that class. This helps to show the vibrant nature of the class and makes it more appealing to prospective members.

  • Make a Personal Connection and Follow-up

One of the most effective ways to connect with prospective members is for Sunday School teachers to make a personal invitation to the guest to visit the class. Encourage teachers to carry extra lesson guides or handouts with them so when they invite a prospective member, they have something to hand them that will be informative of the next class. Additionally, if a guest visits the class be sure to personally follow-up with that person within 48 hours.

God brings prospective members to our churches and when he does, we can take a simple approach to connecting with them. Let’s make a joyful first impression, an intentional appeal, and a personal connection. These three tips can help take a connection to a marriage between the church and the individual.

by Brad Delaughter, PhD, First Baptist Church, De Soto, MO

Reaching Young Adults

I regularly hear church leaders say, “We need to reach young adults,” usually in a church that is struggling to reach and keep young adults. If this is your church, there is hope! Here are three suggestions for reaching young adults.

1. Listen

Listen to God. Why does he want to reach young adults? How has he led you to desire to reach them? How would he have you proceed?

Listen to church members. To whom else in your church might God be speaking about reaching young adults? What wisdom do others have on the subject? (Someone has probably “tried that before,” right?)

Listen to young adults. Build friendships and hear what they are saying about faith and church participation. Avoid the urge to tell them what they should be doing differently. Make sure you are not approaching young adults with a target mentality. Young adults are not a project or a goal to achieve, but individuals to be valued, heard, and loved.

2. Evaluate

What are the possibilities for your church? There certainly nothing wrong with dreaming big, but if there are few young adults in your community or few in your church today, then starting one group or hosting a meal with young adults may be a great start! Your local Baptist association or state convention may be able to provide a demographic study that will help you understand the possibilities, or you can look for yourself at the US Census data for county population characteristics here.

Evaluate the desire of your church’s leaders and members to (1) give up some comfort and control (favorite pew, decision-making, programming, finances, traditions), and (2) mentor and bless new young leaders. These two areas may reveal the biggest barriers to reaching young adults. If you reach young adults but are not ready to invite them into significant ministry and leadership roles, they are likely to go elsewhere.

3. Get to work

Based on 1 and 2 above, recognize that simply starting a young adult class/group or adapting worship style will not reach young adults. Spiritual, relational, and organizational effort is needed.

Spiritual – Invite existing adult groups to pray regularly for young adults as well as you or others who are leading your church’s efforts to reach them. Pray for opportunities to meet needs and share the gospel.

Relational – Weddings, births, kids’ sports, Vacation Bible School, fall festivals, and other events provide natural points of connection with young adults. Be intentional in using these opportunities to begin new friendships. Invite two or three young adults to meet you for breakfast to discuss plans for starting a young adult Bible study. Ask other church members to make a point of getting to know young adult neighbors.

Organizational – Start a new Sunday School class or small group when a core group of young adults are ready to begin. In the meantime, develop one to four young adults through a personal discipleship group or less formal get-togethers. As you reach young adults, invite them to serve in the church. Young adult guests who see young adult greeters, ushers, committee members, and ministry leaders are more likely to believe your church has a place for them, too.

David Adams

Director of Discipleship

Texas Baptists

Reaching Teens in the New Year

The start of a new year and a new school semester is a great time to evaluate and reflect on current practices. Many of us create personal and family resolutions in the new year, but this season also gives us a chance to think about how we are using our weekly Sunday School to minister to teenagers. These are a few strategies to consider when thinking about effectively reaching teens in the new year.

START SMALL

When we think about outreach and meeting the needs of teenagers it can become overwhelming thinking about ALL of the students we have the opportunity to serve. For most youth leaders, we start thinking of a huge evangelistic event with hundreds of teenagers coming to know Jesus. While that would be amazing, most youth groups I know are not resourced to produce such an event.

What if we started with 3-5 of the students we already know? If 3-5 sounds overwhelming, why not start with 1-2? The Sunday School/Small Group model is set up to handle this perfectly. It’s right there in the title: SMALL Group. If you lead a group of teenagers, you can start small. If you direct an entire Sunday School, you can encourage your teachers to start small.

Start small by investing in those few students and their spiritual development. Sunday School is one of the best times to start this process.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

I fully understand, appreciate and value every area of ministry in the local church, but my passion and desire is to find other adults who have a calling to serve teenagers and their families. There is nothing more frustrating than serving in a ministry where God has not called you to serve. One of the key roles in reaching teenagers is to find adult leaders who are called to serve teenagers. Some of the greatest youth leaders didn’t start out as the greatest teachers. They became great through training and experience. The important value was their calling to minister to students. Adults who are recruiting others to teach youth based solely on great teaching credentials will not be successful at reaching teenagers. They must also look for adults who value building relationships. The small group experience each week gives teenagers consistency in who will be leading their group. Adults should always be mindful and careful when developing an above-reproach relationship with teenagers. There should be boundaries in place to make sure the teenager and adult is protected. These guidelines should be clearly outlined by church leadership.

USE EVENTS INTENTIONALLY

I am a big proponent of being creative and trying new ideas to teach students. However, I have sometimes relied a little too much on the gimmick and attraction events of youth ministry like these*:

            – Ugly Christmas Sweater Contests

            – Blacklight Dodgeball

            – Christian Wrestling

            – Costume Kickball

            – Silent Disco

            – American Ninja Warrior demonstration & testimony

            – Setting a World Record

(*All of these are actual events I have done or seen at churches.)

All of these are valid, great ideas to get kids through the doors of your church. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “What are we going to do to keep them here?” The answer is always pointing them to Jesus. Don’t fall into the trap of being an event-driven youth ministry. Each event should have a specific plan or goal that supports the mission of connecting teenagers to your ministry.

Events and creative ideas should be used but that creativity shouldn’t stop at the event. My friend and discipleship team member at Texas Baptists, Jennifer Howington, wrote a post last month about “Five Ways to Engage Children in Sunday School” that I encourage you to check out. I believe applies to teaching teenagers as well.

THE FIRST PHONE CALL (OR TEXT)

As a youth leader reaching teenagers I challenge you to be the recipient of that first contact. Here’s an example of an adult youth leader being that first phone call. Several years ago there was a teenage girl in our youth ministry named Carrie and her Sunday School teacher was Donna. When Carrie’s mother was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor the first person Carrie wanted to talk about this was Donna.

This phone call didn’t happen simply because Donna was a great teacher and showed up consistently on Sundays.

This phone call and strong relationship developed over a series of months & years of Donna investing in the life of Carrie. Donna had NO idea when she met Carrie as a middle schooler that she would take on the role of surrogate mother during Carrie’s high school years.

Teenagers are going to go through trials and difficulties. They may not be as severe as a parent battling cancer. It could be a first heart break that you know will get better but they believe is the end of their world. It could be the death of a friend or family member. After that instance with Carrie and Donna, I challenged all of our adult leaders to be that First Phone Call (or Text) for the few teenagers they have built relationships with so that they would have the opportunity to minister to them in their time of need.

If we start small with the students who are already engaged in our ministry and build those relationships, we can leverage those relationships to create events and opportunities to bring other students to know Jesus. Youth ministries need to be the place where hurting teenagers come to be loved and cared for by adults leaders who will introduce them to a relationship with Jesus. The goal of reaching teenagers is that we point them to Jesus to make a difference in their lives  for eternity.

Cory Liebrum is the Youth & Family Ministry Specialists for Texas Baptists. He can be reached at cory.liebrum@txb.org if you have any questions OR suggestions on how to reach teenagers.

Connect through others: Share with your one

Is your church eating itself?

Author and management consultant Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

As a pastor, you experience it when you step on the platform and attempt to motivate your congregation. You see heads nod in agreement and even hear a few say “Amen!” But then enthusiasm fizzles out in a short time.

“Who’s your One?” may be the most significant initiative Southern Baptists have ever undertaken. What would it look like if you utilized a strategy that got your groups on and off campus involved in “Who’s your One?” as a group strategy?

Mark Clifton of the North American Mission Board says, “If you want your church to become a congregation that makes disciples that make disciples, you have to get your people into discipling relationships with one another.”

It’s more efficient and effective to teach evangelistic tools like the “3 Circles” in a group setting. It’s even more important to teach not only what the gospel is but what the gospel does. The gospel restores our relationship with God, our relationships with others and our relationship to ourselves. Relationships are important — not only to those inside the church but to those outside as well.

Groups decentralize your church. In group life people are more focused on “being” the church in everyday life rather than “doing” church. People outside of the church are not looking for religion. They are looking for relationships.

In an article for Lifeway’s Facts & Trends, Alex Himaya wrote:

“Starting with love and relationship rather than religion doesn’t change my beliefs; it changes how I communicate my beliefs. Everyday I’m trying to mimic the same manner that Jesus used when he talked to people. When he encountered the woman at the well (John 4) he didn’t start with her multiple marriages and adulterous lifestyle. He started with a simple request that began a relationship, ‘Can I have a drink of water?’

Why is this important? The Bible says so.

Scripture teaches us to be disciples and to live and share the gospel. A new strategy is to use your groups to create action for “Who’s Your One?” initiative in your church. Here are a few ideas:

  • Train your group leaders and teachers in the “3 Circles.” Teach them what the gospel is and what it does.
  • Have every member of your group identify one person they know. Encourage them to love and build an authentic relationship with that person.
  • Invite those individuals to the group and group functions so they can experience relationships instead of religion.
  • Have gospel conversations with the new people you have established trust with.
  • Fight for them and not against them.

John O’Brien, co-author of The Power of Purpose offers an additional insight into Drucker’s famous quote about culture eating strategy for breakfast. O’Brien writes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, but culture gets its appetite from purpose.”

Going beyond an understanding of what the gospel is to what the gospel does will significantly impact your congregation and those with whom they share the gospel.

Invitation 3 – The Gospel Invite

Amazingly, just last Sunday (August 11), our pastor told the church that the student he was baptizing had been led to Christ the previous week in her small group.

Wait.

What. Just. Happened?

Yes, it’s true. It is possible for people to commit their lives during a small group meeting. Why don’t we see this more often?

In addition to all the reasons that may exist, there are three primary reasons why we do not see more people (children, students, and adults) coming to Christ in our small groups.

  1. We do not invite lost people to our groups. (See yesterday’s post)
  2. We do not offer opportunities during the group meeting for people to receive Jesus.
  3. We do not aware of the spiritual conditions of the people in our group.

Here are some ideas to help your group be more evangelistic.

First, if you are using curriculum that is doctrinally sound, then there are opportunities to explain the gospel and extend an invitation to receive Christ. LifeWay curriculum has at least one study per quarter that is intentionally designed as a gospel opportunity.

Second, discover the spiritual condition of the people in your group. Ask people to share their spiritual story (testimony). Engage group members in one-on-one spiritual conversations.

Third, offer opportunities to receive Christ as Savior and Lord during group meetings. You do not have to sing Just as I am, or have background music. They do not have to “walk the aisle” in small group. Simply ask the group to raise their hand if they want to receive Christ. Or… invite them to visit with you after the group meeting or send you a text message during the week.

Generally, the more open and free the Bible discussion is, the more freedom a lost person in the group has to ask gospel questions and respond to opportunities to receive Christ.