You're Invited!

Someone saw either on the website or in our bulletin about Back to Church Sunday and I was asked just what it is (yeah!). In short it is a special opportunity for you to be the church…a Sunday for each of us to make an all out effort to invite someone you know who doesn’t regularly attend a service (but probably has been in a church before) to attend worship with you at your church. Now, I have resisted the urge to give you statistics about how people will generally respond, so that I might say it really says something about the state of the church that we must have a ‘special’ day to do what we are supposed to be doing each and every Sunday! Jesus Christ has called us to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8), but if less than 2% of us will invite someone to worship with us in a given year (sorry, putting a sign in your yard saying, "You're Invited!" doesnt count), does it surprise you that the church is facing a crisis? But let’s forget the organized church (denominations like the United Methodist Church), what about the general decline of Christianity in America? If 98% of all church-going people won’t invite someone to attend services at their church (isn’t that safe?), I do not for a minute believe any are sharing their testimony/witness with others in the workplace, or at school, or in the community! Back to Church Sunday is not a gimmick or program…it’s the chance for us to actually live out what we profess to believe…and we should celebrate it every Sunday!