We had three people take a step of faith in Jesus.
How do I know? I'll explain.
This central to our mission- Connecting with God through Jesus Christ.
Our hope is to see people far from God connect to God.
We want to figure out the best ways to fulfill this mission- in our singing, praying, preaching and processes.
Our most essential tool in our process is our Communication Card.
Our card is much like you'll find at any church- name, regular attender, address, comments, etc.
One other feature is the bottom line (yes, it's symbolic even in it's placement) which reads,
"I made a decision to Connect with God today and would like to know the next steps."
Here's how we do this (starting yesterday!):
First, we make a big deal about this line.
We let people know that this is vitally important to us. We want people to know that we believe there is a way to connect with God and enter a relationship with him through accepting Jesus as Lord and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's not a footnote at the end of the service, it's central to what we are doing with the worship service.
Then, after explaining the card, and the significance of the bottom line, we give people an opportunity. If they've made that connection, for the first time or in a fresh way, we want want to celebrate that with them and help them in any way we can.
So we give them the opportunity (no manipulation involved here) to take the Card to our Welcome Centre and receive a free bible (good ones, leather bound!) and an information packet with resources and CD's.
When people do accept this gift it serves two purposes:
First, it helps them to "seal the deal" and make this step of faith in Jesus more meaningful. Jesus spoken often of confessing him before other people, and how this public declaration has a spiritual effect on our lives.
Second, we can then gauge our ministry to see if it is helping people make this first step.
In this process of using cards, handing them in, giving and receiving these gifts, we get beyond numbers and on to people. In this way I don't have to throw out anything generic like,
"We saw a bunch of people make a first step to connect with God this week!"
Too often churches inflate their "numbers" with these vague references.
I can say,
"We saw three people make a step toward God this week as they put their faith in Jesus. I know because my volunteers told me they received their cards, gave them bibles, and talke with them. I know because I know their names and we can continue to connect with them."
Did others connect with God? I hope so. But that's between them and God for now. All I know is God brought three people to him yesterday, and we had the PRIVILEGE of taking part.
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