Musings on Spiritual Matters

Most congregations have a mid-week Bible study time.  Often this time is given to Bible classes, and a time for a invitation or devotional that is given by the minister or someone else in the congregation.  You have about 5 to 10 minutes to deal with a topic or thought.  Most ministers do not use one’s best ideas for this time.  Preaching two lessons, and a Wednesday night lesson is a ton of ideas for one year.  And people are not going to do the best insights from the text on Wednesday.  You could say that this is right or wrong, but it is mostly reality.  So what can you do to make these invitations effective?  Probably, it is not to radical to say that most of the people hearing the lesson on Wednesday are non-Christians who needed to be converted.  I am not saying, “do not offer the invitation.”   I am saying, before you offer the invitation, do something with this devotional time that adds value to the work of the congregation.  So here is a great idea for this time.  Look at the calendar for coming events.  For this summer, VBS is near or here, so for the weeks that are leading up to this special time, have devotions that inspire people for participating and working in VBS.  If there is a big clean up day, create the lesson around the need to serve in this work.  You are doing two things that are good in this process.  You are providing information for the event.  If you notice on commercials, the big companies are just incorporating their products in the show.  On the Voice, the people are sitting in a starbucks cafe, or someone is driving to the event in a Kia car.  It is just part of the show.  So you are making an announcement which people say they never hear as part of the devotional.  And your are building urgency for the event or ministry.  Promote the work during this time.  People will be able to see what the Word of God says concerning this event.  You can help people understand why this is important for the work in the kingdom of God.  Your message will be relevant and help promote the given project.  Try doing this for awhile and you will see more people serving in these ministries.

Related posts:

1. Chaos Wednesday
2. Tired of the Invitation
3. Open Question Night with Elders
4. Review of “Invitation to Biblical Preaching”
5. Late Night Calls

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.