Making Members Out of Visitors

I was reading an article today that only reconfirms what I already knew--hospitality is essential to church growth. The writer of the article began to notice the correlation between those who had visited at "his church" and those who had become members of his congregation in the past six months. What he found was that of the visitors that had been invited to other member's homes and had "socially" connected with them, had become friends with the members, these ALL eventually became members of that congregation, however, of the ones who had visited and been greeted by a friendly congregation, but never been in member's homes and never connected socially, none of them had become members there.

He stated that George Barna's research indicates that 33% of people who are not in church are open to attending services and that the thing that is most likely to attract them is an invitation by a friend. He further indicates that if hospitality is extended to those visitors, 90% of them will stay with that church! Those are impressive statistics.

It has been said that "People are not interested in a friendly church; they are looking for friends." There is a big difference in the two. The Bible repeatedly commands us to pursue hospitality--do you suppose God knows the connection between hospitality and evangelism?

Dana Burk