Welcome To Mark's Message Page Christmas 2022 is now in the past. I managed to get to 6 of our churches in the week before Christmas for various Christmas related services. Well done to all of you who worked so hard to organise Christmas services and fundraisers and for making so many visiting people welcome. It is essential that we always welcome those who come to our churches for Christmas, even if that's the only time they come. Churches that grow are always welcoming new people, though this is not the only thing of course.
If we want to grow we have to be good at welcoming people, we have to be good at talking to people and getting to know them, building relationships where we can. Perhaps this will lead to us all learning something about our friends and neighbours and it might lead to the next stage. Being an inviting church. When we know people, we can invite them to church events and get to know them a bit more and introduce them to others in our churches.
Ten years of study by the developer of Back to Church Sunday, Michael Harvey, reveals that
seven out of ten Christians have someone in mind they would like to invite to church. Yet eight out of ten will never invite the person they have in mind. And it’s all down to fear. Fear is the biggest factor involved in our reluctance to invite friends and family to church. Fear of rejection, humiliation and, worst of all, losing that particular relationship. So, why are we so afraid, when the Bible clearly commands us some 365 times (remarkably, one for each day of the year):
“Do not fear…”?
So, in 2023 I invite all of you to invite folks to things that the church is doing, social events, trips, fundraisings and worship. Now that's a good resolution for 2023.
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