Jon Acuff hits the nail on the head again, with this post about how to invite people to church. “It’s funny because it’s true.” (Acuff’s Stuff Christians Like is worth bookmarking. I’ve been reading it for about two years, which is almost in dog or internet years. Once, I even quoted from “The Prayer Ninja” in a sermon.)
Why is it we have so much difficulty inviting other people to church? I can think of two reasons. The first is that we really don’t care all that much ourselves. People don’t usually have much trouble expressing their opinions about things they care about, whether they’re books or TV shows or movies or restaurants or politics. Is our problem that we don’t really care anymore?
Look at Timothy. Either he lost his passion, or Paul was concerned he might. It wasn’t a question of faith — Paul wasn’t worried about that. What concerned Paul was passion: “rekindle the gift of God that is within you … for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.” For another example, look at what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus.
The other thing that might make us hesitate to invite someone is how our church treats visitors. I’ll talk about that in my next post.