How Long Before You Belong?

For some reason the blog has revolved around our discussion at Drink Deep. But it's because our students are so stinking smart!

We were talking about how to be inviting, how to help people get to church, be it at Drink Deep (our Sunday night program) or something else at church. And we came to a realization. We have a lot of people who have invited people to church, and their friends come to our event. Once.

Follow-up really is not high on what we do well as the Church as a whole. We bring someone new to church, then what? They go home, we go home and we for some reason expect them to want to come to church again, by themselves. As if for some reason after being to church once they feel apart.

So we picked on a student last night. She's been coming a year, invited by her now boyfriend. After a little discussion we figured out how long it took for her to feel like this was her church, her ministry, she felt like this was her family. Nine months. It took her coming consistently to Sunday nights, Bible Study, NewSong on Sunday mornings, all this took around nine months

And the kicker, what made her feel really feel like this was home as when she started serving at the food pantry, when she started giving back and serving. So many studies say someone will feel more involved when they are actually being a part, putting their new found feeling of this being home into action.

Just some things to ponder when it comes to having someone feel more at home in whatever setting you're in...

T