Bring a Friend Sunday planning begins

Several Southwest Texas congregations began planning last week for this year’s Bring a Friend Sunday outreach effort.
Bring a Friend Sunday, set for April 2, is the third of three Southwest Texas campaigns carried out during the year in coordination with national Igniting Ministry TV advertising. Bring a Friend Sunday builds on the outreach efforts of Open House Month and Home for Christmas.
Bring a Friend Sunday is often called the Lenten version of Home for Christmas. On the Sunday before Palm Sunday, United Methodists are asked to invite and escort friends and relatives who don’t usually attend church to a special worship service and fellowship meal. Then members invite visitors back to church for Palm Sunday and Easter worship celebrations as the first steps in follow-up disciple making.
Bring a Friend Sunday invitations can build upon contacts made during Open House Month and Home for Christmas. The process of escorting guests to church adds a person-to-person element to offering Christ to all that was not required in the earlier campaigns.
The Bring a Friend Sunday campaign is designed to:
n Help offer Christ to all by introducing unchurched people to Christ and the community of faith that bears his name.
n Make reaching and receiving new people for Christ an ongoing part of the disciple-making process in each congregation.
Research shows that 70 to 90 percent of those who join a particular local church already have friends or relatives in that congregation. Getting individuals to attend worship for the first time is often the most difficult of all steps leading toward commitment to Jesus Christ.
Bring a Friend Sunday offers a step-by-step plan for involving members of congregations in helping unchurched folks over that obstacle on the pathway to Christ. That plan is detailed in a 146-page Igniting Ministry Campaign Workbook for the Southwest Texas Conference.
The campaign includes an extensive prayer element and relies on involving every member of the congregation in the evangelization task. A number of laity-led teams handle the key campaign tasks: communication, calling, worship, children’s activities, youth activities, hospitality, fellowship meal and follow-up.
Bring a Friend Sunday is one way the Southwest Texas Conference tries to empower ministries in local congregations so they can offer Christ to all.
Congregations can order Bring a Friend Sunday promotional tools—banners, yard signs, customized postcard or business-card invitations—from The Crouch Group (888-211-0273 or www.thecrouchgroup.com).