An invitation to worship...
Let's Accept the Invitation
I was having lunch with a couple of college students this last week and one of them mentioned he has a new strategy for inviting other college students to College Church. He simply says, "I'll see you in College Church on Sunday." He told me he's three-for-three so far!
Surveys indicate that 75% of people who visit a church for the first time do so because someone has asked them, and that 80% to 82% of people who don't attend church say they would seriously consider attending if they were invited. Evidently, invitations matter!
And we all have received one (an invitation). It occurred to me that everyone who attends church is in church because of an invitation. If no one else has ever invited us, our Lord certainly has. As a matter of fact, He extends an invitation to every one of us every week, to join with God's people in worship. Indeed, the reason any of us ever comes to church is because the Lord has stirred up in us a desire to worship Him with His people.
Now, we may not hear the invitation. We might be living too noisy or busy a life to hear our Lord's invitation, but we can be sure of this: our Lord is always hospitable and is always glad when we agree to spend time with Him. I'm thinking that if we listened better than we do, on most early Sunday mornings, we would hear the Lord inviting us to be with Him on Sunday.
That also means that when we extend an invitation to someone else to join us in worship, it is really Christ who is doing the inviting, through us. Regardless of whether or not we are inviting anyone else, our Lord has invited us.
Let's accept the invitation! It's always good to be with our Lord.
Pastor Mark
Surveys indicate that 75% of people who visit a church for the first time do so because someone has asked them, and that 80% to 82% of people who don't attend church say they would seriously consider attending if they were invited. Evidently, invitations matter!
And we all have received one (an invitation). It occurred to me that everyone who attends church is in church because of an invitation. If no one else has ever invited us, our Lord certainly has. As a matter of fact, He extends an invitation to every one of us every week, to join with God's people in worship. Indeed, the reason any of us ever comes to church is because the Lord has stirred up in us a desire to worship Him with His people.
Now, we may not hear the invitation. We might be living too noisy or busy a life to hear our Lord's invitation, but we can be sure of this: our Lord is always hospitable and is always glad when we agree to spend time with Him. I'm thinking that if we listened better than we do, on most early Sunday mornings, we would hear the Lord inviting us to be with Him on Sunday.
That also means that when we extend an invitation to someone else to join us in worship, it is really Christ who is doing the inviting, through us. Regardless of whether or not we are inviting anyone else, our Lord has invited us.
Let's accept the invitation! It's always good to be with our Lord.
Pastor Mark