Allow me a minute to share my convictions. I fervently believe:
- God wants to bring revival to our country.
- He wants to use you and me as part of it.
For that to happen, we’ve got to have:
- Holy Spirit power.
- A heart for the lost.
- A committed team of leaders.
- A church full of inviters.
- A set of skills and systems that enable us to draw people into relationship with Christ, connect them with members of the church, and grow us all up spiritually.
That’s quite a list. We’ve begun to work on numbers 1 through 4; the rest of our lessons will major on #5: developing the skills and systems that will enable us to draw people to church and Christ.
Before reading farther, please take a minute to ask the Lord for an undistracted time for you to read and absorb what follows.
I gave you a lot of information last time, so this lesson will be a little lighter.
Revival Grows
Momentum moves in concentric circles. It starts with you, moves to your leaders, to your people, then to the community.
If you’ve been working on your ministry the way we’ve talked about since you began this series, you’re building momentum, whether it can be seen yet, or not. By the way, study the history of every revival and you’ll discover that revivals start with a person, move to a group of leaders, spread to more people, and then to the community.
We may be on to something here.
Skills and Systems
Once your congregation cares about reaching its community, you have three sets of skill you need to develop:
- Touching and attracting unchurched people to your church.
- Building systems that bring people to Christ, grow believers, and provide care for everyone who attends.
- Keeping the Holy Spirit’s power, heart, and vision, so your fervor stays white-hot.
Two Models for Attracting People to Church
The “Seeker Church Model” has received a lot of criticism over the years for being only what some call an “Attractional Model.” In this model, the church puts on great services and invites “seekers” to attend. I have to say, under the leadership of Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek Association, this way of doing church has reaped amazing results.
More recently, Rick Rusaw and Leadership Network have championed “The Externally Focused Church,” or “The Missional Church”. This model encourages churches to go into their communities and serve in tangible ways. It too, has reaped great results.
You Can do Both
I’m for whatever the Holy Spirit is using to reach and grow people in Christ, so I say, why not do both? Why not attract and invite people to church and go into the community to touch and transform them where they are?
In 2003, New Song decided we wanted to become a church that was so vital to our community that the community would weep if we went out of business.
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” so we decided to become “The Church Next Door.” Our goal is to be a great neighbor to the peoples, institutions and agencies in our area.
Our largest neighbor is Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Over the years we have fed thousands of Marines, hosted parties for them in our building, staffed their Bootcamp Chapel on base and dozens of other things.
In the city of Oceanside, we partner with homeless shelters, feeding centers, rehabilitation centers, secular groups that work with runaway teens, and many other agencies. To date, our most ambitious attempt to love our neighbors has been our movie “To Save A Life,” which appeared in theaters and is being used by thousands of churches to reach youth and strengthen families.
I tell you all this because as your church deepens its heart for your community, you will want to foster external ministries and partner with agencies that touch and transform people.
At some point you’ll want to cast a vision for this, just like you are casting a vision for God’s heart and for inviting friends. It’s part of a fully-orbed strategy for reaching your neighbors: (1) Pray for them, (2) Serve them, (3) Invite them.
Hold this in the back of your mind and work on it in the future, as the Lord leads you. For now, concentrate on the attraction side of evangelism, because there’s not much sense going into your community to serve people if you’re not inviting them to something good.
Campaigns Teach your Church to be Inviters
As you ramp up for your church campaign, the key word (again) is momentum. Momentum begins with prayer. So I encourage you to pray for your upcoming campaign in every small group meeting, committee meeting, staff meeting, and in your personal prayer.
Pray for open doors (Col. 4:3) and prepared hearts to respond to invitations. Pray that your members will be intrinsically motivated to invite their friends, neighbors, co-workers and loved ones.
Last time we lined out all the steps to take in making announcements, recruiting small group leaders, and coordinating with your ministry teams. The point of all this build up is to create anticipation for the sermon series and the new small groups.
If your campaign catches fire, your people will purchase extra books to give to their friends. We’ve had people leave copies on their office desk, place one on top of their tennis bag, and carry them around school, all as conversation starters. I also know of churches where members have purchased a dozen copies as an easy way of saying, “Hey, I bought you this book for a group we’ll be starting. I hope you’ll join us!”
When that kind of enthusiasm erupts, you know you’ve got momentum!
Motivated to Invite
Over the past five years, New Song has done twelve church campaigns. Some of them went well, some of them did not. A good campaign sets you up for another good campaign, which sets you up for another and another and another. Your people will become great inviters as they develop the habit of continuously thinking, “Who will I invite next?”
Repeated campaigns reinforce that habit and develop great inviters.
Taking Action
Assignment 1
Examine your budget and explore the Outreach, Inc. website to decide what kind of advertizing you’ll do for your first campaign. As you lead your leaders through the leaders’ group, one or two of them will probably be motivated to cover some or all of the costs. This is a good thing. Most great movements are fueled by great sacrifices. Don’t hesitate to let people (and/or your church) invest in kingdom advancement.
Further Reading:
Assignment 2
Look ahead on your church calendar. Assuming this first campaign goes well, you’ll have people asking you “What’s next?” That’s the beginning of momentum for the next campaign. As you know, the best times for church campaigns are early fall, late January, and Easter. Based on the timing of your first campaign, pencil in your second one now.
Look at Lesson 5 if you’d like a list of campaigns that went well for us. I’d rather not list the ones that didn’t go as well, but if you’ve got a campaign in mind that’s not on this list, email me privately and I’ll let you know if we’ve done it, and how it went.
Next Week
Next week we’ll talk about presenting the gospel to your newcomers and connecting them in a discipling relationship.
1,000 blessings,
Hal
Need to Catch Up?
Get the Momentum Bootcamp lessons you missed here:
- Why Some Pastors Make a Bigger Difference
- The Prayer that Changes Everything
- You are Not Alone when Hearts are Cold
- What Everybody Ought to Know About Building Momentum Through Preaching
- The Secret to Attracting People to Your Church
- 9 Ways to Build Momentum with a Church Campaign
- 48 Things You Should Do to Make Your Church Campaign a Success
Hal Seed is the founding and lead pastor of New Song Community Church in Oceanside, California. Get more resources and equipping for leading a better church at PastorMentor.com.
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Related: Do you want to reach your community and grow your church?