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August/September 2005
During the Annual Meeting, the Commission on Communication members acted out a skit that pointed out how personal invitation is one of the most important ways to invite newcomers to your church. Here is a condensed version of the skit:
Delegate 1: Strange, isn’t it? Seems like the Still Speaking Initiative hasn’t had much of an effect at all around here.
Delegate 2: You know the Still Speaking Initiative has had a huge impact at our church. You see, we learned something really important at one of those Invitation, Hospitality & Follow-Up events – it’s that everything works a little bit. So our church did all the things we were advised to do. And even borrowed ideas that we learned from reading the new Spotlight email newsletters.
We put a customized version of the TV ad on our cable station, and put customized Still Speaking posters up around town. We revamped our web site to make it more welcoming and to tie in with the Still Speaking Campaign. We spruced up our nursery and put new signs up around our church so people would know where to park and how to enter the building. Members of our youth group served as greeters – outside the building – so they could open those heavy doors for people. We even trained some “welcomers” who learned to watch for newcomers, to help them find their way around and go with them to coffee hour so they could introduce them to other people. We also used pew pads to collect names and addresses of newcomers to worship, and sent teams of people to deliver them loaves of bread
following their visit.
But do you know what the one most effective thing was that we did? We taught folks in our church how to invite people to worship. And you know what? Lots of them said yes!
Delegate 1: Oh come on, does that really work?
Delegate 2: Absolutely. Allow me to demonstrate. This weekend, many people in this audience were given invitations to come to this plenary session. Could everyone who received an invitation with the words “Bring this card to Saturday’s Plenary session” in BLACK please stand up? (Not many people stood up.) Now, would everyone who received an invitation with those words in RED stand up. (Significantly more people stood.) Wow! Look at all those people!
Delegate 1: I don’t understand – what was the difference?
Delegate 2: The difference was, the RED invitations were given to people one-on-one, in person. The BLACK cards were left on a table for people to find.
The moral of the story?
86 percent of people come to church because they were personally invited.