As we were gearing up for Easter, we passed out a little eBook called, “Preparing The Soil.” It was a collection of some posts I had written here on the church blog as well as some new content just for the ebook. But, if you’ll recall we had a goal for our Easter services 420 on 4/20 by 4:20. We wanted to reach 420 people on Easter (April 20th) through the means of Mark 4:20. And even though we didn’t reach our goal, we had the best Sunday we have ever had with 243 people at SixEight Church. On top of that we also made connections that weekend with some who have stuck around beyond Easter.
We learned something that day. Want to know what it is? What we learned was this: When SixEight people get motivated, we get the job done! We believe in our vision and mission of disciples making disciplemakers who do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. We are passionate about it. And when we are motivated to do it, we go into our world – the 8 to 15 God has placed us in – and make disciples. We pray and expect God to create opportunities to invest in our relationship with them and then invite them to church.
Well, the time has come for us to do that again. (Actually, if you’ve paid attention, it’s always the time. We don’t just invest in our 8 to 15 at Christmas & Easter, we do it all the time. That’s why we’re always talking about it.) But, in terms of where we are right now as a church, this is a time to do that again.
We are finishing up our first module of “The Disciples Project” in a couple weeks, which means we are approaching the month where we focus on inviting our 8 to 15 to church. That’s the cycle we will be on for the next couple of years. 2 months in a module of “The Disciples Project” and 1 month of an outreach minded series.
The whole idea behind doing this, is that as we are learning more about what it means to be a disciple, we are investing in the lives of our 8 to 15. So, during each 2 month module, we should be praying and expecting God to create opportunities for us to invest in our relationship with them. And then, as we enter into that 1 month of the process where we are doing outreach, we invite them to church. We invest for 2 months, and then invite for the next month.
So, as we are only a couple of weeks away from the first Sunday of our “Elf” series, I thought now would be a good time to remind you of the idea of preparing the soil. And, even though there is a lot of language in here about our 420 goal for Easter, the truth is still the same. We want to do our part to prepare the soil of our 8 to 15 so they are ready to be invited to church.
It’s a short read, so, why don’t you take a few minutes and read through the ebook, “Preparing The Soil” and start using the ideas to prepare your 8 to 15 to be invited to one of our Christmas Services!
