Why do people attend a church for the first time?

 Sam Rainer recently shared on his Facebook page research done by Church Answers to determine what would be a reason someone would begin to attend church regularly. It mostly goes along with previous studies done over the past few years.

    To grow spiritually                    32%

    Someone invited me                  22%

    God told me to go                      20%

    Spouse wants me to go              17%

    Other                                          16%

    Life crisis                                    16%

    Family connection                      15%

    To meet new friends                    13%

    Preaching quality                        10%

    Good music I like                        10%

    Programming for children            7%

Notice that the bottom three are often the things churches think will draw in new people. What their study found was that these things may cause transfer growth from other churches, but are not the primary attractions for unchurched people.

Another question asked in the research was why people attended the church they currently attend, and the number one response was because someone invited them (41%). Other studies consistently find that the ones most effective in inviting others to attend church is not the pastor, but friends and family of the one being invited.

When I served as a Resource Minister I often heard complaints that the church wasn't growing, and the pastor was usually the one blamed. I heard it so often that I finally began to push back and ask the one complaining how many people he or she had brought into the church. The answer I usually received was...none. As I pointed out to one person, their pastor had been at the church for two years; they had been members there for three decades and yet not one person attended that church because they had invited them. Our meeting ended rather quickly at that point!

Church growth is the responsibility of every member. I am not familiar with a single study that does not find that a large proportion of people would attend a church if someone they knew and trusted invited them. We can, and should, do everything we can to make the church attractive to first-time guests, but if we expect them to show up we have to invite them. There's nothing wrong with having a first-rate youth and children's ministry. There's nothing wrong with having a worship service that will allow people to experience God. Certainly, our preaching should be theologically sound and relevant to the needs of people, always pointing them to Jesus Christ. But, if we are not inviting people to our churches, none of these things will matter.

Who will you invite to your next service?

Whatever happened to the altar call?

When I was doing regional ministry I often preached in churches when the pastor was away on vacation or when the church was seeking a new pastor. I was amazed at the number of times people would come to me after the service thanking me for giving an altar call. Evidently, this was something that had not happened in their churches in some time.

During a recent Bible study in the church I currently serve as Transitional Pastor the topic of altar calls came up. One person mentioned that the church where her son attends there is seldom an altar call given. While some in the study were surprised by that, others said they had experienced the same thing in churches they had visited.

Maybe it's a sign of my age, but I cannot imagine preaching and not giving an altar call. I never know how God might be touching some person sitting in that congregation, and I need to give him or her an opportunity to respond to that touch.

Does a person need to walk an aisle to be saved? No. But, I remember how Billy Graham would tell his audience that he was calling them to make a public decision because Jesus always called people publicly. There is something that solidifies that decision when it is made publicly.

In my altar calls I invite people who want to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to come and allow me to pray for them. I also invite persons who might want to rededicate their lives to Christ and those who are interested in transferring their membership to our church to come. I invite persons to come who want prayer and explain that I am always glad to pray with people. I also mention that, for some reason, many Baptists have forgotten about the old-fashioned prayer altar. Sometimes a person doesn't need to talk to a preacher; he or she just needs to do business with God. I invite such persons to come to the altar and pray. We've been seeing people do that more than we used to, and it thrills my heart to see it.

Pastors, don't complain about the lack of converts in your churches if you do not give people an opportunity to respond to your messages. Yes, I know, it's old-fashioned, and in many churches it's not considered cool to have an altar call. But, I'm not nearly as interested in being cool as I am in giving people an opportunity to respond to God. As long as I'm preaching I'm giving an altar call.

Church Invitations

A few weeks ago I preached in a nearby church. As people were leaving several made the usual comments about how much they enjoyed the sermon. I'm often amused by this when some who mentioned how much they enjoyed the message wasn't awake long enough to hear most of it! However, one person's comment caught my attention. She added, "And thank you for giving an invitation. We haven't heard that much lately."

Their former pastor was a student at a nearby seminary so I was surprised that she indicated he did not normally end the service with an invitation. However, I was not surprised at the statement because it's one I hear too frequently when I'm asked to preach somewhere.

Some pastors have stopped giving an invitation at the close of the message. I've sat in a few of those services when visiting churches and always felt like something was missing when the service ended. I'm not sure why there has been a movement away from giving an invitation. Perhaps it's felt like doing so isn't "seeker friendly." Some may feel that it is putting pressure on people to respond. Certainly, no one wants to sit through 27 versus of "Just As I Am" while the minister begs people to come forward, but that's no reason to stop giving invitations.

While I appreciate some of the changes we see in many churches, this is one change that I think is a mistake. Every sermon should challenge people to make some type of decision in their lives, and they should have the opportunity to make that decision public while it's fresh.

I challenge people to make several decisions.

• The decision to invite Jesus Christ into their lives for the first time.
• The decision to rededicate their lives to Christ.
• The decision to move their membership to this church.
• A life decision in response to a specific challenge in the message.
• In addition, I offer to pray for anyone about any issue going in their lives. I also invite people to come to the altar to pray to God without talking to me.

I believe in keeping the invitation brief. I announce to the congregation that we will sing just the first two versus of the invitational hymn, and if no one responds we will close the service. I feel that if someone is going to come forward it will happen quickly if they know we are not going to prolong the invitation.

If you've stopped issuing an invitation at the close of the worship service, I invite you to reconsider. Give people the opportunity to respond publicly to whatever God may be doing in their lives.