Real Evangelism: Accept No Substitute

The Church of England had a smashing success with their Back to Church Sunday personal invitation Evangelism method. I am convinced that personal invitations are the only way to effectively get people into the door of the church. You can spend all the money you want on performance based Evangelism guru consultants, pre-printed sloganism mailings, masterful flash websites, and churchy programming gimmicks (I'm looking at you, U2charist!), but if people are not invested in the church enough to tell another person about the Church, what it means to them, and (primarily) inviting them is the only way to really get people other than flash-in-the-pan sight seers in the door.

Its all there in the Book of Acts:


After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me;for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’

So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ 


When the Church fails to do that, it fails plain and simple. 

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