The Key Strategy: Finding the Bridges of God

When a North American mainline congregation, such as an Episcopal church, is growing, it’s usually reaching out to people who are already in the existing social networks of the church’s active members. These “bridges of God” are key in helping unchurched people “cross over” to Christian life and witness.

In a research project completed by LifeQuest, it was found that about 65 percent of those who visit a church do so because a friend invited them. While factors such as the rector’s influence and the Sunday School may account for some first-time visitors, the majority choose to come because a family member, friend, coworker, or neighbor invited them to do so. Formal studies conducted by many organizations repeatedly reaffirm that the most influential factor in bringing people to a church is the direct invitation or positive recommendation of others. No other factor is even close in importance.

Invite a Friend Sunday provides an ideal opportunity for you to invite others to your church. You may well change their lives — and your own life — in the process of extending the invitation. Lyle R. Schaller’s eighteen years of research into growing and non-growing congregations across North America provides one of the most extensive database of any church growth researcher.

For many years, Schaller has asked church members questions such as, “Why are you a member of this parish rather than some other church in this community?” He reports that “between two-thirds and three-fourths of the people gave responses which can be classified as friendship or kinship ties.”

Significantly, Schaller reports that “in most rapidly growing congregations, two-thirds to seven-eighths of the recent adult new members first attended at the invitation of a friend or relative.”

Even more significant, in rapidly growing congregations, friendship ties are mentioned more often than kinship ties. By contrast, in the declining parish, kinship ties account for a substantial number of all members, while friendship ties are rarely mentioned.

The moral: the parish that seeks to grow should look at how friendship ties can be increased between individual members and persons who are not active members of any worshiping community.

Donald McGavran and George G. Hunter III, Church Growth: Strategies That Work (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1980): 33-35.

Return to the Invite a Friend Sunday home page

S. Joan Hershey, A Guide to an Effective Invite a Friend Sunday: Sharing Hospitality with New People.
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