It’s probably safe to assume that just about every church wants to experience healthy growth. If you’re reading this, we can probably also assume that you want your church to experience this, too.

When looking at the churches that are experiencing healthy growth one of the key elements we see in all of them is that they have created a culture where their members invite others.

Inviting is a form of evangelism

In John 4, the woman at the well had an encounter with Jesus and ended up running into the town where she told the people she saw there, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29 NIV). A few verses later, we find that many of the Samaritans from that town came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah because of this woman’s testimony. 

In John 1, Nathanael was skeptical of his friend Philip’s testimony about finding the Messiah. Instead of arguing with him, Philip simply said, “Come and see.” The invitation to encounter Jesus inarguably changed Nathanael’s destiny.

So how do you develop a culture where your members invite others? 

1. Make it normal. Talk about it often. Rather than a rare occurrence, put the vision of being an inviting church in front of your people often. Work stories into your message. Encourage people in the announcements. The more your people hear about the need to invite people to encounter Jesus at church, the more normal it becomes and works its way into your culture.

2. Make it a win. It’s been said, what gets celebrated gets repeated. So look for opportunities to celebrate the wins. When you hear stories that involve someone coming to Christ and being baptized that resulted from an invitation to church, make that known to your entire congregation through a video or some form of testimony.

3. Make it easy to do. One of the most effective ways to make it easy for your people to invite others to church is to put an invitation display in the middle of your lobby. Create pocket-sized invitation cards with information about your church that they can put in their

Pro Tip: Teach your people to not just passively invite their friends to church and then leave it at that, but rather to be proactive by arriving together, sitting together, introducing them to others, and taking them to lunch after.