Assimilating People Into Our Church

The Book of Romans, and we stopped it right at chapter 3. But what I want to do tonight. Is I want to start. Talkin about. The church. And if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Acts chapter 2. And I'm going to read a verse say a few words about it. But we won't come back to it tonight, but I just want you to see. what a dynamic church is and I think do we have the one with the series Vicky the one before that? This is what I've called this series vision2020 for you. Say. Wow. That's that's a year-and-a-half away. It is about two years. That's about how long I think that it'll take us to implement everything that I'm going to talk about but it's the Dynamic Church initiative. That's what I've called. We want to be a dynamic church, and we want to reach out and we want to do things, right? And to do that. We have to have certain processes in place. Are you going to hear me? Say the word process and systems a lot as I'm teaching through this. But we need to have some systems in place to where we know how to deal with new people and new visitors and Gaston. The people that we have discipleship and people finding their niche in the ministry, our financial systems, and I'll we'll talk more about that in a moment, but Acts chapter 2, I just want to read verses 42 through 47. In the Bible says and they continued steadfastly in the apostles Doctrine. Now, this is right after Pentecost and the church had started and they were in homes. Of course, says, they continued steadfast in the apostles Doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread, which is probably talkin about communion. And in prayers, then fear Came Upon every So Many Wonders. And signs were done through the apostles, not all, who believe we're together, and had all things in common. So you see this church here, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. That means that men would stand up and preach and teach and the people continued in it. If you going to be If you going to be a god-honoring church, you need to be a Bible preaching church. It's what you need to be by honors God if you will preach his word. And so that's what we try to do here and the people steadfastly continued in that Doctrine it but then it says also Fellowship. So you can't just have Doctrine and teaching all the time. You need to have Fellowship, you need that you need to be able to get to know one another and to get to know one another and pray for one another and talk and laugh with one another and in breaking a bread or communion. They look at verse 44, all who believe we're together. They were unified, they had all things in common versus 45, they even sold their possessions and goods in divided, them among as anyone had me. So if someone had a need in the church, this is probably not tall enough people outside, but inside the church, somebody had a need. If somebody had excess or somebody could afford it. They would sell something and give those people the money. So they had everything in common and looking verse 46 and so continuing daily with one Accord in the temple. Breaking bread from house to house. They ate their food. So this is probably talk about Fellowship more like John was talking about earlier potluck. They would go in, they would eat the church was a house church and different people would hold meetings in their house and they will go from house to house and they would probably have food there for them. A Bible Study Fellowship and all that. And it says, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people even those without the church, and the Lord added to the church daily. Those who were being saved. What do you think a church would be like? If someone got saved daily. I just think about that. How many churches do you know that can say? We average one person a week getting saved at our church. Will one person a day didn't say that our church. Well, how many days are in a year? 365 people save in a year in that incredible. Did you know that there's churches that do that? There's a church in California.

They average for the last 17 years 2.3 people per day being saved. Is that not incredible? I mean it says the Lord added daily. So when we think about people and Outreach at all. We would we would be satisfied to see one person. Get saved this year. How about one a day? The Lord added daily? Well, this is the way the church ought to be. Now. There's some people who would tell you. That the secret to church growth, if you want to call it, that is just to get out of the way and let the Lord do the work. Now, in other words, I could just come over Sunday and preach and and we can have a good time and Wednesday night and have a Bible study and all like that and love him. So that's all you have to do because if the people come they'll hear the word and they'll be safe. Well, I've been here about four years and basically people don't come do they, occasionally will have some visitors but for the most part, the people don't come. They don't even know us. I don't think. Most people don't even know we exist. I don't think maybe a few, but most don't even know we exist. So we're going to have to change that and I like to use the analogy.

Of a yard because I love yard work. You can go out and you can throw out some seed on top of the ground. Is that seed going to come up? Well, you say if it rains at me, but what if it don't rain and how about in the summer when it gets hot and dry. What do you do? Well, you can go out and throw to see but if I saw you do, you're not going to have a nice yard. Do you need number one? You need to mow your grass. You need to slow your grass. If you can, you need to water your grass. You need to fertilize your grass, you need to trim, and you need to Edge and you need to blow if you want your place to look nice. You have to take, there's things that you have to do. You can't just say, okay, here to see you. I'm going to throw it out and let it go. You just can't do that. And it's the same way with a church as well. Churches grow better when someone works with them churches grow better when they have systems within the church that they can follow. Let me talk to you a little bit about system, you know, God love systems. We have an orderly God. There is something that's called the solar or what? Solar watt system. There's something that's called the skeletal, what? System. There's there's other things that is called. The central nervous system.

We have something called the circulatory wipe system. God, love systems. He put things in order. But systems need to be. Maintained. Systems have to be maintained. So if you have your hand out, I want you to look on the first page. And what we're talkin about is assimilating people into our church, how to widen the front door. A long time ago, people used to say, here's what you need to do. You need to crack your front door. And you need to clean. Open your back door at church. In other words, you don't let but certain people in there, that agree with everything you agree with and then if they want to cause trouble, you just make sure you had the back door wide open. They can leave any time they want to. But really we need to widen our door. And then when the people come in, we need to tell them and teach them the truth. And then they won't be so interested in getting out if we learn how to widen our door. Without compromising the force. And that's what these systems do. So if you look at the next slide. Or we can go to the next slide, but did I put in your hand out every church has UK. I want you to look at these systems. Every church should have Well, the first one I'm going to say is the third one on your list or maybe first. What's the first one on your list simulation? Okay. That's the first thing. That's what we going to start talkin about tonight, how to assimilate people in our church. You have to know how to deal with people and what to do with them and have things for them when they come to your church. So that's what we're going to talk about. This. Simulation system will be on this 3 or 4 weeks. What's number two on your list? Evangelism system. There has to be an Outreach if there's no Outreach, but no one's going to come. No one's going to come. I mean, you can invite somebody wants in a while, but for the most part, if there's no Outreach, no one's going to come. So this simulation system. It don't matter if you have it or not, if nobody comes. So we need to know what to do with people simulation system. Then we have the evangelism system. What's next on yours? Discipleship system. What does that mean? That means that when people come to church and even the members that are here that we need to beat the cycling one another, that means not only classes, but that means that we ought to probably have about twice a year. We probably ought to have a class on how to personally witness to someone just just just so that we can see it and keep it on the front of our mind, the 90 day, prayer, challenge that, I hope all of you and praying each and every day, it is in your devotion. God. Give me your heart for the loss. You see? That's going to help us in our evangelism system. And then when people come in the church, we can't just say, okay, you're safe. Just do the best you. Can you have two disciple? Those people. They had. You have to look at order them so that they can grow in Christ. What's the next one? Okay, Ministry placement system. What does that mean? That means that everyone has a spiritual gift. Everyone has been gifted by God to do something in the church. I'm not talking about talents, like, singing or playing an instrument. That's a talent. That's not a spiritual gift. The moment. You were saved, you were giving a spiritual gift. Whether it was Ministry service hospitality teaching and preaching, whatever it is. You were given that gift and we need to make sure that people are using their gift in the church. Next on, mine is a financial system. We have a financial system here. But what I mainly mean by, this is our are the members of the church. Are we giving are we giving our tithes? Are we giving our 10%? Are we tithing or are we tipping? You know, you've heard me say this the last few weeks and months. Most Christians give 2.5% on average. Will that's a tip. That's not a tie. But there's certain certain way, certain things that you can do. There's for example at Christmas. Sometimes, we give to the Baptist children home. One year we gave to the tornado victims in Kentucky. You can have a special offering the month of December. Because it cost money to do things. You can have a special offering the month of December and just ask people to give to the Outreach system to the evangelism system, cuz it's going to cost money to get out here and do things and the run Facebook ads, and all these other things that you have to do to try to reach people. So we need a financial system in place, like a facilities system, just the building itself and, and the upkeep and all a care system. You need a system in the church where you take care of the people that's in the church from, I may be home bound, can't get out. Somebody may need to go get medicine for him or groceries 4 or something like that. It's how you care when somebody has a birthday. Does somebody know that I didn't call them and send them a card or send someone flowers or visit someone in the hospital. It's a kiss better. If you have a system of how to go about and do that a worship planning system.

We need a worship planning system. We need music. We need worship. We need to have a system that we follow each and every week. We need to implement, re-implement are offering and do that. Instead of just walking by throwing it in, since we had covid, our announcement needs to be done a certain way announce. Our music needs to be done a certain way. If if not good to come to church. And I understand this is what we are right now, but it's not good to come to church, and just seen one song, and then take a prayer request, make an announcement and then me get up and start teaching, or preaching. It's like, it's almost like it's a school, you coming out. It's nothing. But a school night Jessup reaches. And then we all go home. We don't we don't want that. People who come to church, they want to worship this. Got to be music and there's got to be There's got to be prayer, meaningful prayer. We need the men. We need to start our prayer group back on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. You ladies need to get together and be praying in a group on Sunday mornings. We need to start that back up again, a worship planning system. And then, of course, and evaluation system, we have to evaluate everything we do. Because some things that we going to do probably won't work as well. But you have to find out. So you have to evaluate everything. Does this work? Why did it work? Is this not working? What can we do? Better? You always have to evaluate everything. So let's just go down through our our list here. And let's begin with

with assimilation, notice assimilation is keeping more of those who come through your door. In other words. What you're doing is you're trying to widen your front door. Now. What is the goal of assimilation? Now in your hand out, you got some blanks, you want to feel them and you can they'll be up here on the screen phone number one, the goal of a simulation system. Is to inspire first-time guests to become second time, guess. So once we have our simulation in order and once we go out and Outreach and people are inviting people and what we all need to do. Is we all need to become invite others? We all need to be invited us. Inviting people to our church to inspire first time, gas to become second time guess. So if you want, if someone comes your church, the first time. You want to inspire them to come back next week? You say what? How do you do that? Will we're getting to it and just a moment, but the goal is to inspire first time gas, to become second time. Guess number two. To stimulate second time, gas to become third time. If you can get someone, your church 3 weeks in a row, that means that they, there's something about your church. They like no one's going to come three weeks in a row unless God is speaking in touching them. And that's what we want. We want God to speak and touch someone's heart. So we won't be at the second time gas to become third. Then we want the third time gas to become regular attendees. So, if I'm up here and I and I asked if you're here today and you're a guest day, if you've been here, if this is your third time here. We need to talk. We need to talk because if it's your third time here in a row, we need to talk about, you becoming not only a regular attendee, but number for to move regular attendees in becoming members. We need to talk. We can't just let them just come and come and not never say anything. Know if someone shows that kind of Interest, then we need to move from 1st, to 2nd, from 2nd, to 3rd, from third, to regular, from regular the membership. And we have to do this in a way. We have to have a system. We have to have a process that we used to do that. We just can't kind of look over shoulder. I've I've seen you before know, we need, we need a process and a system and I'm going to go through that in a moment, but Every person who walks through the front door, this church to come in. We need to look at as a gift from God. Their gift from God if they come here because chances are somebody's been praying for her and the Lord has been dealing with them and tugging at them and our first assignment. If we want to take our ministry, to the next level is to do everything we can possible to create. A Godly and good. First impression. No, first impressions are important.

Remember, remember, looking remember the first time you ever looked at your husband and wife. But some of us in here, are you? No First Impressions. If you had a bad first impression, you wouldn't have kept dating him or dating her. You wanted on it? I'm at the first time. I saw Martha. The one, the boy. I was coaching baseball won. The boys, said it look like your tongue was hanging out, you almost stepped on it.

First first impressions, mean something we all know that and it means something at church to also. So we need to convince Our Guest. That we want them here that we want them to come back and we want them to be part of our family, and then if they do join, they'll make new friends and then God will be speaking to him on a regular basis as well. Let me go to the next slide.

These are characteristics of church members. Now. There's a guy by the name of Will Arnett a r n. He's a big church, gross guy and he wrote that these are characteristics of your general church member. Not look at some of these a church member attends regularly. Well, that would be all of us. All of us are here regularly. Have you ever called you ever called The Church my church.

Let me tell you about you. Don't normally say let me tell you about new Grace Church. You say let me tell you about my church. It's my church church members. Look at their church as my church. Well, I think that's good to look at it as my church. Because that shows that you getting something out of it, you're happy there. Now, of course, there's other ways that you can do that when some people think because they've been a member of that church for 70, 80, 90 100 years that they think we're, we're not going to let some preacher come in here and do anything. This is my church. Well, that's a bad way to look at it. My church in the fact that we're going to run it the way I want it. My church. I've been here a lot longer than you preacher and I'll be here after you leave. This is my church. We going to do it the way that we've always done it. That's right, you know, so one thing we need to understand. That this is the Church of Jesus Christ. It's not my church and we don't have on our sign out there. Burger King Baptist. You can't have it your way. This is not Burger, King Baptist Church either. So all I'm saying is it's good to say it's my church. When you know that there's things going on at your church in your part of that church. But if you're trying to control things that can be a bad thing to to say, this is my church regular church members. They have at least four friends in the church. Probably all of you would say. He certainly I have everybody here is probably a friend. Church members have a role in the church. In other words. They they have something that they do it. Don't matter if you agree to her. Which is very important. You know what? One of the first things people ask when they walk in the door of a church. Are there people there that look like me? Did you know that? Not me? I don't mean facial recognition. Are there people there? This my age or there people there? That I'm dressed. Like are there people there? That think like me that's that's why a lot of people want to know. So when you have greeters and we're just a very small church, but if larger churches, if you ever notice, when they have graders, they'll have elderly men, elderly women, middle-aged men, women still have children greedy. People want to know there's children here over my children. They like that. There's people here. My age, everybody that's greeting is not 7580 years old. Why is it that most churches? There greeters, are old men. Why is that? Because all the children have gone come to church, anytime it's hard for young families to get the church on time. But those of us who have children this long gone, all we had to do to get ready to go to church. We can get here an hour before if we want to, you know, but as greet, I mean, it's very important to have greeters. People who are friendly but it's also important. Just a great to have some people that agree that our young young people. Now we couldn't do that cuz we don't have that many young people in our church, but I'm just saying if we did, everybody has a role in the church, something else. Number five. They give regularly to the church. Members normally have now, like I said, 2.5% somewhere around, but still, they give regularly to the church. And then most members invite friends to church. The only time most time, most church members will not bite invite friends. It's when they're ashamed of the church. If you're ashamed of your church, you probably need to go somewhere else. Shouldn't you probably need to go somewhere else. If you're ashamed of it. I know that we don't have everything that people want. We don't have the big band. We don't have the big Orchestra. We don't have the big choir singing. I understand all that, but if you get so hung up on that that you won't invite people to church. Then it's a bad thing to go to a church that you that you want invite people to you need to invite people to your church. If you like love your church, you need to. So that's why I say we all need to become in viders.

Now, let's go to the next flight.

So before, before we get there. Let's think about this. The first step. An Outreach is to attract first-time guests. The first step in a simulation. It's too. It's too. Attract back first time. Guess so. That's what we're talkin about here. We want to talk about how to attract back first time guess now, why do people visit a church? Did I put that in your hand out? Why people visit a church? Okay. Okay. Why people visit a church? What does number 1 say? The white dragon most husband, they'll go to church if their wife, drags them to church. You know, like the old saying you ever been drunk before? Said yeah, my mom used to drag me to church every Sunday. I've been drugged, you know their wife drags. All right, look at next the children bags, the children go to church and they like their Sunday school class to go to Vacation, Bible School. Daddy. I want to go back those people over there. So very nice. Please take me to that church. Some of the reasons people visit the church. Someone they know was playing a part in the service. You may have a Christmas program and somebody that they know is in it a child or something. So they'll come to church to see that child. People do that all the time. On holidays, they consider it a religious Duty. Some people come to church, two days out of the year. What are Eastern Christmas? Easter and Christmas.

And so we need to understand that. So if that's the case, if you're going to have lost people that you know, that will come to church twice a year Easter and Christmas that I want to tell you. That we need to do something special as a church on Easter and Christmas if you're trying to reach people that has to be big event days at your church. I tell you another good big event day is Mother's Day. Need to do something. When I say something an event, I mean we need to advertise it. We need to put door hangers out. We need to print invite cards and everyone in the church needs to take those invite cars and give it to their neighbors and friends. Look, we're going to we're going to recognize mother have a special service for mother's in 4 weeks on Mother's Day, do that. See that's that's when a lot of people will come to church on Mother's Day. So, you know, on high holidays other people come to church because God spirit is tugging at them. They have become desperate cause of challenging circumstances, lot of people. A lot of people will go to church this Sunday because of that shooting in, Texas. They don't know how to handle it. They don't know how to think about it. They want to hear something else other than the news media. They lost the job. Their wife walked out on them. They lost a loved one. They're having health problems. They're lonely. They don't have any money. They're hopeless. What it, what do young parents want? They want somebody tell me how to parent, or what? A great time. To have a series on parenting. If you have young families in your community. Have a series on parenting. There's a church that sent out went to three neighborhoods. They said it was over, 150, homes in each neighborhood and they asked a question. What could we do? What is your greatest need for? Could we, do you know what the greatest need was from the young family? Potty training. Potty trained, you say behind the world, going to church help with that church got someone. In some social worker that come about and told the people, how to train your children to use the potty at church and they said that young people flocked in. Potty training. Yes. People are nice neighborhoods around us. You have no idea what may be going through their head. What is their biggest need? Will I need some money? I need to know how to invest. What did you know the pastor over at New Grace? He can help you with that. He can help you trade options and stocks. He can he can he can hold a webinar. What do you like to attend that to know, how to handle your 401k bet? You there's a lot of people out there that would just love that had nothing to do with church. Nothing to do with God, but if you can build a relationship with, you can get them in church and show him the truth and they can get saved. It's just things like that. So anytime there's a challenging circumstances are there new to the area and looking for church. If they're Christians, they become disgruntled board or disillusion with a current Church. They want a better life for the children. They want to meet new wholesome friends. Here's one, you'd be surprised. How many people do this? They have a business and are looking to network. Some people come to church just to see if they can drum up some business. You said well, that's not right. Long as they're sitting out here and they're here in the gospel that may change your heart if they want to come to our church because they're looking for somebody to maybe drum up business with 11. They'll hear the gospel and their church people visiting on vacation. Info. It's about quarter to 8. I think that we will stop it right there. Well, let me just say this. We're not going to get to this tonight. We'll, we'll get to this slide right here next week, but let me just say this.

About what we need. There's a reason that I said, let's do this 90-day prayer challenge. Because number one, it will soften her heart and get us to think about people who are unsaved. But also we need to start praying for people who are in our community and our families people that, you know. That God would give you the ability and the opportunity to speak to them. In a way that will draw them closer to God. We're not going to be able to be this Dynamic Church Vision 2024 unless that overall we are a Praying Church. We need to be a Praying church. We need to pray at home. We need to pray here. We need to pray in our quiet time. We need to pray about these people that God may send us to our church. Go ahead and start praying. Now. You send people to our church. We're going to be friendly. We're going to meet them. We want them to be a part of our family. Start praying that right now. Do that because this will never happen unless we are a Praying church because what will happen is we'll get out here and we'll try to do all this stuff in her own strength and will get so busy. Will leave God out of it and that will never work. We have to be a Praying church is what we have to be and I'm talkin about everyone. Greeters, I'm talkin about but if we ever have Sunday school teachers and Sunday School classes, whatever it is. We need to be a Praying church. So next Wednesday night. We're going to start back at our next slide. What is it? That brings people back? And now this is the real practical slide of what we've been talking about it. And you see the front the first two Friendliness and cleanliness. From the time we pull in the parking lot until they go back here to the bathroom. And everything and everything that can happen from the time they get out of the car until they go to the bathroom. There's a hundred things that could happen that would cause them not to come back. But there's one thing that has to happen to get them to come back and that is God needs to speak to their hearts. And the first impression is so important. And that's what we'll talk about next week. Amen. All right, let's pray. Father. We thank you, and praise. You and love you tonight. Lord, Lord, as we Endeavor to try to be the Dynamic Church, is we Endeavor. Lord to try to do Church your way to put these processes and systems in place. So that everyone knows what they need to do. Everyone has a job. Everyone has a Ministry and Lord help us to become prayer. Warriors. Not only Lord, as we pray each and every day for the loss or we pray that you would break her heart over that. But Lord just for the gas to come to our church and for people to visit and to pray for each other. That each of us would prosper in the ministry that you're going to give us here. Lord. We just thank you for these that are here tonight. Thank you, Lord that they want to do, right. They want to do what you would have us to do to have the church, that's going to be glorifying to you and that will also help and touch this community. Lord. I pray as we go, our separate ways that you would just keep us safe. And Lord. We just want to say tonight. We love you in Christ's name. I pray. Amen.