I don’t personally know Perry Noble. I’ve never met the man. But I’ve listened to some of his messages as the pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina (go gamecocks). He seems like a nice enough guy, his sermons are relevant, hip, and the church service seems to be the event of the week. I subscribe to his blog and a recent post caught my attention, but for the wrong reason.
Perry wrote about a person called “Bob”. Perry met Bob over a year ago at the gym and in Perry’s words “I invited him to church…and he came! (it’s amazing what a personal invite will do!)”. So Bob’s been coming to church the last year or so but as of yet has not become of follower of Jesus. Now I could go on and continue to give you the bullet points of his post, but it might be better for you to read it for yourself. After you’ve read it you’ll be better able to see where I’m coming from…and this is it: inviting someone to church is not missional living. It’s not incarnational living. It’s not the way Jesus did it. It’s not the answer for the overwhelming majority of people that want nothing to do with the church. It’s not going to reach those with a truly postmodern worldview.
I can give you countless examples of how I’ve invited people to a church service or an event the church was putting on and they never came. And they never will. Inviting someone to church is not living on the edge, it’s not radical christianity. It’s a twentieth century method for reaching a modern thinker. And please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not railing on Perry. I’m expressing my thoughts on the idea that is so entrenched in us as christians: if we’ll just invite them to church then the pastor and Jesus will do the rest. And don’t miss this either: I’m not against bringing people along to a church event/service. I’m against making that the way we try and reach those that don’t yet follow Jesus.
The point of Perry’s post was find your “Bob” and reach them by inviting them to church. I would say, find your “Bob”, and invest personally in them. Be a friend. Be real. Become a part of his/her life. Be Jesus in the simple things. And when, or even if, the time comes invite him to be a part of the church, not just the church you happen to attend.
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