What many people need is something to help them, something to give them confidence. Special events are exactly that; they provide an opportunity for people to experience a small win of someone accepting their invitation. Even, “I’ll think about it. Thanks for the invitation,” is a small win.
A bunch of small wins may eventually give enough confidence to someone to go for the big win—to share their faith with another and see that person put their faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior.
3. Special events help create a pattern of outreach.
When people invite others to a special event, they do so because they think the event will impact the invitee in a meaningful way. In other words, the special event will, in some way, meet a need in their life—regardless of whether that person realizes he or she has a need.
The invitation to special events actually creates a pattern of outreach. The whole notion of outreach—sharing one’s faith—means believers share the good news of Christ to those who are in desperate need of Christ, regardless of whether or not they realize it.
Learning how a special event may meet a need in a person’s life helps create a pattern of understanding what it means to share the gospel with another.
4. A small step to mission
As church leaders, we want all our people to live life on mission; I’m sure you would agree. It would be pretty phenomenal if all our people lived as missionaries, were witnessing machines constantly telling others about Jesus, and inviting people to be part of a local church. Even though this is our goal, we all know it isn’t the reality. The reality is that a small percentage are actually sharing their faith and inviting others to church.
As I stated earlier, we can take this reality and beat people up, shaming them for their lack of enthusiasm and effort, or we can attempt to train and encourage them. I’m for training and encouraging. And this is where special events can be very useful. Because special events provide a natural opportunity to invite others, to experience small wins, and to create a pattern of outreach, they can serve as a catalyst to help people eventually share their faith.
Sure, this means that many people will only be intentionally inviting others four to five times a year. But—to be blunt—I think that getting most people engaged four to five times a year through the use of event evangelism is a huge step forward.
This article on event evangelism originally appeared here.
