Would you like to come to church?
Aren’t you thrilled when you get the chance to speak to someone about Jesus – and not merely about church activities (or even a building project) or Christian morality – but about Jesus himself? And we can feel bad when we realise we’ve missed a good opportunity to do so, or if we know it’s a long time since we last did. These are good signs: that we want to honour Jesus by speaking about him, and that we love others enough to want them to hear about him.
But how do we actually go about it? Has anyone ever asked you to tell them about Jesus? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It would also be pretty surprising. So, how do we start the conversation? Asking, “Can I tell you about Jesus?” may work, but it’s not likely. Most modern British people seem wary of conversations that sound like they might be spiritual.
So what can we do? We can issue an invitation. We can invite them to a particular event or talk where they will hear about Jesus. Or we can simply ask, “Would you like to come to church?” After all, church happens every Sunday, the Bible will be read, they’ll meet some great Christian people and they should hear a talk that says something about Jesus. If they come… fantastic! We can then talk with them about what they heard. And if they don’t want to come, we can gently enquire why that is. My guess is that it may well lead to being able to speak about Jesus. Well, I plan to give it a go…