The Every Sunday Ask

We expect visitors to our worship services and to our classes. And they do show up. New faces every week. Repeat visitors. Sporadic attenders. 

You have visitors at your assemblies, too. We intentionally pray for our visitors to encounter the living God. To see Jesus. To be convicted by the Holy Spirit. I assume you do, too. Just as in 1 Corinthians 14, we pray that the outsider will be convicted in the presence of God. The prayer and even expectation is that these visitors will want to be part of what is happening at our churches. That is why it becomes critical to make the ask. Do the invitation. Call for the response. How sad to leave them unsure and uncertain. 

That is why we must make sure that there is an ask, an invitation, a call to respond. Sometimes it is at the end of the sermon. Sometimes it is during the welcome. Or at the end of a baptism or coming home statement. Every week we do some version of this for four different types of people: 

1. People who want to know more about Jesus.
   We have a lot of visitors who do not know much about Jesus. Some do not even know the good news of his death and resurrection. The ask may be if they would like to have a conversation about Jesus or hear Jesus stories. It might be an invitation to our Sunday Seekers class or our Wednesday Jesus Journey class. It might be an invitation to ask any questions they may have about Jesus. 

2. People who are ready to follow Jesus.
   We often do this in conjunction with public baptisms. Or we invite these people into further discussions about what it means to be born again. We ask people to make the decision. 

3. People who want to come home.
   This is lost-sheep evangelism. We often think we are leading someone to Jesus only to find out we are actually leading them back to Jesus. We ask if they would like to talk about the road back home to their faith. We ask if we can share our coming-home stories. 

4. People who need help.
   Not necessarily financial or benevolent help, but spiritual help. We are open about inviting people to seek help with addictions, relationships, and spiritual growth. Forgiving and being forgiven.

There are any number of ways to make the ask. Come to the front. Go to one of the prayer warriors. Fill out a card. Ask someone around you. Or encourage your members to ask/invite visitors. The important thing is that we make the ask, the invitation, the call.

The Holy Spirit will connect us to non-believers. May God bless us as we seek to draw them, invite them, call them into a relationship with Jesus.