Whom to Invite and Where to Invite Them

~ Marcelo Carcach

“He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blssed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Luke 14:12-14, ESV

This year, I want my church and I to become better evangelists. Not only do we need it for our numeric growth in the church, but for our own spiritual edification in our endeavor to serve the Lord.

As I previously mentioned, there are different ways to share the gospel with people. This year, I want us to make use of several methods, but I also want us to focus on what I think will work best for most of us.

But first, there are some mistakes we need to correct.

I notice we have been inviting people to church for quite some time. And what’s been the result? The people who come are always the same people who never stay in the church because they have their own churches they attend—that’s a problem.

If people have their own churches that they faithfully attend, their own churches to which they are committed—and if those churches are good churches, churches that preach the gospel and preach the Bible—then we shouldn’t be trying to pull them out of their churches. That’s not ethical.

Also, many people who go to church are faithful Christians already committed to their churches, but the people who don’t go to church are people who don’t understand the value of going to church. So, if we invite unbelievers to church, won’t that seem strange to them? Do unbelievers truly find meaning in going to church?

Don’t get me wrong. By all means, invite people to church—that’s how some people come to the faith. But don’t make inviting people to church your only evangelistic strategy—don’t even make it your main strategy.

Of course, someone who says they are attending another church when they really aren’t attending it (nor are they committed to it), that’s a person we need to invite to church—they’ll be doing much better being committed to our church than not being committed to any church.

People who go to a “church” where the gospel and the word of God aren’t preached are also people who need to be invited to our church because they need to be spiritually fed.

However, what I am saying is that we need to use a different strategy to reach people who normally don’t go to church, or don’t see any value in going to church. After all, church is a body of believers, not unbelievers.

The other matter we need to correct is inviting people to a Bible study. It’s a problem because, normally, the only kind of people that want to study the Bible are faithful Christians who are committed to good churches.

Again, you may find some people who want to study the Bible as literature or who want to study your religious beliefs for some reason, but normally non-Christians don’t want to read the Bible. It’ll make more sense to them for you to invite them to church where there is at least music for them to enjoy, but a Bible study or a prayer group are exactly what to them?

Because of this, what some people in church may end up doing is pulling people from other churches to invite them to their Bible studies. Is that doing the Lord’s work? I think not.

What the Lord tells us in Luke 14:12-14 is that we should be looking to show mercy and compassion on those who are needy: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind—people whom society forgets and who are experiencing deep needs. Of course, if the Lord’s disciples invite such kind of people so they can care for them, can they turn a blind eye to their spritual needs? I think not.

What is the greatest spiritual need of a human if not the salvation of their soul through faith in Jesus Christ? Therefore, I think this passage has great relevance to evangelism. We should be inviting those who need food, those who need financial aid, those who need clothes, those who need shelter, those who need emotional support, those who need friends, those who need company and care, and those who need to meet Jesus Christ.

But where should we invite them?

We should invite them to our homes—where we can show them compassion by serving their needs, where we can get to know them, and where we can eventually share our faith with them. Don’t invite them to church right away! Don’t invite them to the Bible study right away! Invite them to spend time with you so you can have time to point them to Christ.

We are too eager to get them into church right away, but aren’t we skipping some necessary steps? Isn’t church for believers? It makes more sense to me that we should do things in the following order:

  1. Invite them to your home a few times
  2. Serve their needs
  3. Get to know them on a personal level
  4. Point them to Christ (share your faith)
  5. After they believe in Christ, invite them to church
  6. After they begin attending church, invite them to the Bible study

I realize this is a process, but I think that if we truly want to lead people to Christ, we need to carefuly consider how we are going about doing evangelism.

I hope this message has been a blessing to you.

Marcelo Carcach

Pastor Marcelo’s Articles

Click on the links below to read the articles in HubPages

Featured Article(s)

A New Bible Reading Plan

On The Parables of Jesus

On The Book of Revelation

On The Holy Spirit

On Calvinism

On Angels, Demons, and Satan

On God and Jesus

On Genesis

On Church Matters

On Relationships and Marriage

On Sin

Sin — Principles to Define It and Identify It
Know How to Overcome Sin
Know How to Overcome Sin (Part 2)

On Women and The Bible

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