Welcome to the final post of my six-part blog series, “Igniting Growth In Your Church.” I trust that this weekly series has taken you to a new level in your understanding of how to keep your church’s evangelism temperature at the boiling point. If you haven’t already, make sure you pick up my new book, Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church to keep digging even deeper into the truths of effective evangelism.

Last week, we talked about how to pinpoint your best fields for promotion. This week, we are going to shift gears a little and talk about one of the most critical pieces of evangelism – how you can prepare for people to say “yes!” to God and how to follow up with them when they do.

Today’s Topic:

Preservation: Preparing For And Following Up With People Who Say “Yes!”

PREPARATION

In addition to inviting people to say yes to God through our various evangelistic efforts, we have to prepare for them to say yes. God will not draw people to Himself in your church unless you are prepared.

Why would God cause people to accept His invitation of salvation under your care, if you aren’t ready to receive them and start shepherding them toward becoming fully developing followers of Jesus?

Preparing for people to say yes to God is actually more an assimilation discussion than an evangelism one. The process of clearing the way for them to meet God in a personal way begins the minute they decide to visit your church for the first time.

The Assimilation System that I detail in Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests Into Fully-Engaged Members Of Your Church outlines the process for making sure a first-time attender comes back again and again until they are ready to accept Jesus’ invitation of salvation, join your church and become fully-developing followers of Christ.

FOLLOW UP

Following up with new believers is a very important task for any pastor. Our faithfulness with the few will prove our trustworthiness with the many. (Hey, that sounds like something Jesus said one time!)  While each church must wrestle with their own new believer process, the goal is to be clear and intentional. Ask yourself these questions:

• What do you want a new believer to do in the first hour after becoming a follower of Jesus? At The Journey, we invite them to check the box on their connection card, so we are aware of their decision. Other churches invite them to come forward during an invitation time. I’m not against come forward invitations. If you use them, just make sure you also have a way for those who are so introverted they will never come forward to register a decision within the first hour.
• What do you want a new believer to receive within one day of becoming a follower of Jesus? For us, it’s a personal email, with the link to the online bible study.
• What do you want a new believer to do within one week of becoming a follower of Jesus? We want to put a new believer’s book in their hand to help them start growing in their faith.
• What steps do we want a new believer to take in the first month? At The Journey, the answer is baptism. What’s the answer for your church?
• What’s the future plan of discipleship for a new believer? For us, it’s connecting them into a small group and normalizing their church attendance.

There’s no such thing as a perfect new believer process, but do everything you can to insure that the new “babe in Christ” that God has entrusted to you has the best chance to grow!

God has big dreams for your church. Bigger than you can imagine. And He has called you to do the work. As you do, He will add His Spirit to your efforts.

My prayer for you is that you will latch into and implement all that we’ve discussed here over the last six weeks. Make sure to pick up Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church and keep going deeper in your study. You may also want to check out my popular resource, “The Evangelism System.” Just click here.

Make the changes that need to be made in your church. Mobilize your people for evangelism. Keep the evangelistic temperature boiling hot. And then give God the praise as He sends you the harvest.

– Nelson

P.S. If you’re ready to build a New Believer Follow-Up System to make sure that no new believer slips through the cracks at your church, check out The New Believer Seminar!

P.P.S – If you missed any of this blog series, just use the links below to get caught up:
Click here for Week 1.
Click here for Week 2.
Click here for Week 3.
Click here for Week 4.
Click here for Week 5.

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.