Invitation and Church Leadership
One of the most difficult aspects of my work is to help church leaders who have tried an Invitation Sunday once and who tell me “it didn’t work” our tendency is to measure any new idea by the life that we know. Here are just some of the reasons offered by people who aren’t willing to give invitation another chance: “My people are all elderly and all their friends are in the congregation” “We’ve tried this before” “We’re no good at inviting people” If we are not careful all our decisions are ruled by our past experiences. We need to rethink what is possible. By thinking of our elderly as elders, by realising not everything that Jesus tried resulted in success (for example the rich young ruler turned away), and by realising that God allows us to fail at times to show us something about our character that needs to be transformed. The 11th commandment should really have been “Thou shalt not quit”.