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I’m not sure how you feel about Christmas. I have to confess that I love it; although that’s not how all of us on the staff team at Cornerstone Church in Nottingham feel. But we are united by our conviction that Christmas presents us with almost unrivalled opportunities in British culture to share our faith with people and invite them to church.
In 2015 as a staff team we read Ready, Steady, Grow by Ray Evans and were struck by his observations about the possibilities for evangelism at Christmas. So with a fresh determination to make the most of the opportunities, we went back to the drawing board and looked again at what we were offering at Christmas.
There were some programming changes we made as a result of our discussions, but perhaps the more significant than any change to our programme was that throughout the autumn term we sought to encourage and equip people to invite their friends. And the slightly uncomfortable place we began was with ourselves!
In his book Ray Evans writes: “Leaders should model this. Too many pastors, vicars, ministers and elders challenge members to bring people, but don’t do it themselves. Once you start, others will begin to catch the vision that God reaches people through Word settings.”
So in a team meeting we asked ourselves some questions. Why don’t I invite people? Do I excuse myself from inviting people because I’ll be at the front? Who can I invite this Christmas? Can I be freed up from serving in any role in order to invite someone?
And then as a team we spent time praying for our friends, family and neighbours who don’t know Christ and who we could invite. We made publicity available early, and spent time in our services praying for our Christmas events in October and November.
A gift for every church member
On the first Sunday in December we gave each household at church a gift. We’d wrapped up copies of Tim Chester’s Advent devotional The One True Light and as a church we read through it in December.
Why did we do this? Because in the midst of all the excitement and encouragement for evangelism we didn’t want our members to miss out on the opportunity to once again marvel at the God who became flesh and dwelt among us.
Our prayer was that with our eyes fixed on Christ and on the beauty of the incarnation we might be bolder with our invitations and more winsome with our words. And God was good. In 2015 we had a 40% increase in numbers at our carol services in comparison to 2014.
A version of this article originally appeared on the FIEC blog. Used by kind permission.
We’ve got great bulk discounts available on Tim Chester Advent devotionals The One True Light and The One True Story. Get 50 copies for just £3 each, and 500 copies for just £2 each.
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Kathryn is the Families Ministry Worker at Cornerstone Church Nottingham, UK. She is married to Jonathan (better known as JJ) and has two small children.
