Is inviting someone to Easter service this weekend enough?

“We’re going to have a lot of CEO’s in the building this weekend.”

As an associate pastor, that’s what our lead pastor started off our Monday church staff meeting with. CEO stood for “Christmas and Easter Only” and was the term that was affectionately used to refer to the thousands of faces we could only count on seeing twice a year: Christmas and Easter.

As Easter approaches, many of you may have been prompted by your pastor to invite a friend to come to church with you this weekend. That is amazing! Inviting someone to church is such a great way to open the door to someone hearing the gospel, re-engaging the church, and maybe even starting a relationship with Jesus. But this time of year, always causes me to ask the question: are we using seasonal church invites to “check” our responsibility of evangelism off our to-do list?

Don’t get me wrong – I think we should 100% be inviting others to join us at church this weekend. I truly believe that real life change happens every Easter. I do want to challenge those of us that may be tricking ourselves into believing that simply extending an invite to church once or twice a year satisfies the evangelism requirement of our faith.

Jesus’ last words to us before his ascension were to “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In this instance, Jesus calls each of us directly to reveal our faith in Him to everyone we meet, everywhere we go, every single day.

At Back to the Bible, one of our key focuses as a ministry is to help you live-out or “reveal” your faith to others on a daily basis We’ve conducted years of research and the findings have been overwhelming: most Christian’s get ‘stuck’ after putting their faith in Jesus, and don’t take the next step of truly discipling others. (check out our latest report on The State Of Christianity in America here)

So, what are some ways we can live out our faith today?

1.      Invite people to church with you every week.

I know – crazy right? But seriously, don’t just wait for Christmas or Easter. You have people in your life – friends, family, coworkers, etc. – who need to hear the good news of Jesus. Most churches meet every week on Sunday. Invite someone to come with you every Sunday and be there if that person has questions. The worst thing they can say is no.

2.      Start discipling someone.

Discipling someone doesn’t need to be this overly-formal, complicated and secretive relationship that only occurs between two Christians. Reach out to someone who may be struggling, and share wisdom from scripture, a prayer, or even just your presence with them. You may find many opportunities to share the gospel with someone just by being a good friend to them first.

3.      Seek God daily and ask Him to use you.

One of my favorite and very practical daily practices is to memorize one verse or passage from Scripture every single day, and ask God to use that verse to help you minister to someone else that day. The Word of God is alive and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword. I do this often, and I have never once found myself lacking opportunities to share that particular scripture with someone else.

4.      Live a life pleasing to God

Much of the evangelism we do today is going to be non-verbal. Before we have permission to speak into someone’s life and share the gospel with them, we need to ensure that we are living a life that is pleasing to God – bearing the fruits of the Spirit so those around us can see evidence of the transformational work God has done in our lives. Audit your actions, speech, how you treat others and where you spend your time. If someone looked at your life, would they see that there’s something “different” in the way you live?

This week – I really hope you do invite someone to Easter service with you at your church. I sincerely hope that invite changes someone’s life. But I want to challenge you – don’t let your evangelistic efforts stop on Sunday – search every day for how God can use you to share Himself with those around you.