It was a post card.

It came in the mail today.

It was attractive and eye-catching.

It was an invitation to attend church on Easter Sunday.

 It was so well laid out with all the right information that it made me want to attend.

 And it wasn’t from a Baptist church.

But this I know for certain… all my neighbors who don’t go to church received this same post card and many of them will pass by several Baptist churches just to this church on Easter Sunday.

Why?  Because this church cared enough to invite them!

I have lived in my area for two years, yet I have never had a Baptist church drop by to visit, send me a card, give me a call, shoot me an email or use any number of avenues of inviting me to church.

Now I have had lawn companies, satellite TV companies, painting companies, insurance companies, dentists, doctors and even pet caretakers to use multiple means  to invite me to try their business.

We are missing the boat by not inviting the thousands of people around us to come hear the greatest message the world has known!

Here are three steps that you can implement today and see an Easter attendance like never before.

1.  Be intentional                                 

More people visit Baptist churches by accident than by invitation.  It’s time to reverse that trend, and it starts with being intentional.

The shortest time known to man is the time after church one Sunday when you wonder why attendance isn’t larger and the next Sunday when you wonder the same thing.

Interrupt the routine by creating a culture of intentionality.

Be intentional in teaching.  Provide simple samples of how to invite people.  From the pulpit send an email or text.  Put a postage stamp on a note.  Call someone right then and there as they listen in.  Introduce someone you personally invited to church who is in attendance that morning.

Be intentional in resourcing.  Provide whatever tools they need, from postage stamps to sample texts and emails to a script of what to say.  Print special tickets with event information on them and give them away as “free tickets”.

Be intentional in celebrating.   There is no greater encouragement for your people to invite others than to present a new believer who came to Christ because someone invited them to Easter worship.  Share the stories!

Create a culture of intentionality… invite on purpose and invite with purpose.

2.  Be innovative

Do you know how the greatest inventions were created?  Someone got innovative.

You can put five people together and within five minutes have twenty-five ideas of how to intentionally invite people to church.

And you already have so many opportunities available.  Cellphones, email, your website, small groups/Sunday School classes.

Here is a tremendous idea that Scott Smith shares:  How to Mass-Invite Your Entire Community to Easter Services (Cheap!)

3.  Be inspiring

Everyone follows a leader.  The leaders of your church have the potential to impact your entire church family by simply setting the example.

Leading up to Easter, your pastor, your deacons, your small group leaders and other ministry leaders can share a one-minute testimony during the worship service about how they are personally inviting people to church.

Especially any leaders that your church family knows may share their own personal reluctance.  It is the classic, “If I can do it, anyone can do it!”

Speaking of inspiration, Joel Southerland recently shared this blog and we are getting responses from leaders across Georgia who are implementing his suggestions.  Take a moment to read it here:  8 Ways To Make Easter Perfect (For Evangelism)

Invite, invite, invite.

You will never catch the fish until you let your net into the water.

Any ideas? Leave a comment below…