Easter is approaching quickly and on April 12 we’ll be celebrating as a church Jesus Christ’s resurrection.  This is a great opportunity to take a big step outside your comfort zone and invite a friend to church.  As the Outreach Director for our Lakeview and Lincoln Park locations I’ve been tracking our information that we receive from guests as they come to visit.  I’ve seen an overwhelming response that many of the guests that we receive on Sunday mornings have been invited by a friend or family member.  They came because they were invited!

The church does a great job of letting people know we’re in their community through different forms of outreach like postcards, newspaper articles, banners, promotional items that are handed out, evangelism and many other ways.  What we’re finding is that even though these forms of outreach can be effective still the most effective form of outreach involves a personal invitation from a friend or family member to come with them to church.  If this is the case, we need to all take the ownership to invite our friends and family members to church.  This is one of the most effective ways to reach people that are far from Christ.

Research backs these claim up too.  Recently there was a survey conducted by Lifeway Research.  Lifeway asked 15,000 people various questions regarding their openness to outreach from churches.  The research indicated that the highest amount of return for someone to visit a church was through a personal invitation from a friend or family member.  In fact, 63% of people that were surveyed said that they were somewhat likely or very likely to visit the church if a friend invited them and that percentage increased to 67% of people being somewhat likely or very likely to visit when a family member invited them.  These were the two largest percentages that the survey revealed.  Lifeway also asked what celebration people would be most open to visiting and considering matters of faith.  Easter came in second behind Christmas as the service that people would most likely attend if invited. 

Here’s my challenge to you.  If over 60% of people would come to church if they were personally invited let’s keep our eyes open for an opportunity to be an inviter.  Research has shown us that people would visit church if they were personally invited and that Easter is the second most likely weekend people would come to church and be open to considering matters of faith.  This Easter, take a big step outside of your comfort zone and reach out to a friend, family member, coworker or even a neighbor and invite them to a place where God is moving and people are growing Spiritually.  Each of us can be an inviter; we just need to take the chance and trust that God can use us to bring others to church.

After our evening worship gathering at Lincoln Park last night I had a great chat with a bunch of guys about Twitter, Facebook, blogs, emails and the role of technology in fostering community life.  These men were all 20 something and had been somewhat shaped by technology in their formative years.  All of them were open to and appreciative of technology as a tool to connect.

Here's my conviction--the faster technology moves, the more important it is for spiritual leaders to harness it as a tool to slow down and feed relationships for interconnectedness.  Mark Batterson calls this "digital discipleship" and that's how I view my participation in tweeting, blogging, Facebooking and texting.

Some naysayers say, "status updates, instant messaging, tweets and blogs are indulgent--nobody cares about the minutae of your life."  I disagree.  In fact, the minutae of life forms the mortar of close relationships.  Some of my most treasured pieces of knowledge about my wife are the little bits about her that are mundane but precious to me. 

Connecting with the minutae of other peoples' lives makes me feel like I'm in a small town in the midst of a big city.  Urban life takes away many of our capillary-level relationship connections but technology gives them back.  Good tissue--living tissue--needs capillaries to feed it and make it fully healthy.  When I Tweet, I form a capillary between me and others.

When we women think of a love story it usually begins with a woman and a man meeting.  The plot may be similar to the 1999 movie Mansfield Park, based on the novel by Jane Austen.  Very soon in the story we learn that Fanny Price is in love with Edmund ever since she was a young girl.  You think that he cares for her in the same way.  Yet, enter Mary Crawford and Edmund has eyes only for her.  You grief with Fanny over her unrequited love, how can Edmund pursue Mary and want her to be her his wife?  Does he not see that she isn’t a woman of good character?  Poor Fanny as she has to watch all of this unfolding before her with no one to confide in.  And Edmund seems to have created a woman in his head whom he pictured Mary to be and finally comes to the realization that she was not who he thought she was at all.  In the end, Edmund seems to wake up and realize that the love of his life has always been in front of him.   He recognizes that has been in love with Fanny all this time.   In the movie, when Edmund goes to tell Fanny that he loves her, she thinks he is just telling her in a brotherly like fashion and you can’t help but relish in this a bit as she barely looks up from her book and casually tells him she loves him too.  For we think Edmund should feel at least a twinge of pain that Fanny went through while he was pursuing that other woman.   Edmund then makes his point clear that it is a love between and a man and a woman, Fanny is elated and tells him she too loves him and they live happily ever after.  You breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice with Fanny as she has finally received her heart’s desire, the love of her life. 

As a woman the desire for a good love story to take place in your life is an exciting prospect.  The desire to be loved and to love someone back is what you seem to be created for.  God did create us for companionship and most of us marriage is something that is probable.  Yet, I do not want to write about a love story between a man and a woman, but about finding the true love of your life, the greatest love you can ever know.   

You may remember the popular television show Touched by an Angel.   The angels, Monica, Tess, & Andrew coming to the aid of someone new each week, with their purpose of telling the individual they were assigned to that God loved this individual dearly.   This message of God’s love changed that person’s life forever.   In life this is a very real message for God does love you and me, a love that is beyond measure and does change one’s life forever.  When I think about how much God loves me (and you) I am so overcome with emotions that the only way to release my feelings is to let the tears flow; tears of joy, tears of gratitude, tears that express more than I could ever convey with words.  Even now as I write and ponder God’s love for me the emotions are rising within. 

As Easter approaches, this is a time to remember how much God loves us.  For Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Please take time out to reflect on this verse and to think about this amazing love.  This is your heart’s desire, the love of your life is Jesus. 

My prayer for you today is found in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 taken from the New Living Translation,   “May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.”  

I spent the morning with our concept team as we wrestled out our preaching calendar through the rest of the year. Because of the creative work involved and because I like hanging out with the guys on our team, this is one of my favorite occasional meetings.

Afterward, as I was driving down Lake Shore Drive in 70 degree whether with the sunroof open on my way back to the North side, a thought hit me--okay really it was more of a question: how did Jesus preach? And my initial reaction was, "he preached topically".

Usually Jesus was teaching concepts and topics that were grand and sweeping in importance, rooted in particular Scriptures, and powerfully practical while at the same time deeply spiritual. I can't think of an occasion where Jesus taught "exegetically"--straight through a section of Scripture. I also can't think of a time where Jesus' words weren't grounded in some Scriptural fragment or another.

"So what?" you say. Well, I think it just strikes a note of freedom. I think its good to teach exegetically--to tackle a book or section of Scripture and go right through. But there is also important value in attacking life issues with a kingdom-mindset, grounding the life issues in relevant Scriptures and then giving wisdom-for-life application. Its a legitimate form of preaching.

Anywho, just thinking out loud.