REACHING THE LOST – STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

Contacts: New Invitation Cards

Developing contacts through your membership is one of the most productive avenues to achieve success in the Contact Step of the HTHSOE model. The first stage was to engage your members by using HTHSOE bookmarks. Never stop challenging your members to provide more names. Now we will introduce another tool called the congregational invitation card. TJ Gifford from the Lake City church of Christ in Florida introduced us to these cards. I have personally seen success from using this at our home congregation. Consider the following information about this tool.

Purpose: The purpose of these cards are to invite those you meet to your church services. At time its awkward to know how to approach someone or what to say. The first contact should not seek a conversion or even a Bible study. Perhaps a warm and friendly invitation to visit is what they need and this card is a quick and easy way to do it.

Description: The card should include the congregation’s name, address, phone number, time of services, a line for your name as the invitee, an image of your church building, a church logo, and a QR code to take them to your congregation’s website. We also encourage you to list what your congregation offers the local community. You can see an example at the end of this training sheet.

Application: You can place these cards in your compassion cards and personal cards sent during holidays and special occasions. Pass them out around town at local stores and restaurants. You can set a stack at public areas. Try handing them out at ball games, fairs, and flea markets. Give one to your bank teller, insurance agent, mechanic, clerk, friend, family member, or neighbor. The uses are unlimited and provide an easy way to develop contacts in our busy world.
Challenge: Be intentional and don’t just leave them on a table hoping members will pick them up. Pass out a bundle of 10 each month to every member. If you have 100 members, this would equal 12,000 invitations per year. If you do the math, this is a great way to reach the “many.”
 
Required Information:

  • Congregation’s name
  • Congregation’s physical address
  • Congregation’s mailing address
  • Congregation’s service times
  • Congregation’s Logo (may need a picture file)
  • Congregation’s website domain or direct link to a web page
  • Congregation: what do you offer the community?
  • Contact’s name
  • Contact’s email
  • Contact’s phone

We recommend a minimum of 1,000 but adjust this amount according to the size of your congregation. There are discounts provided to congregations enrolled in HTHSOE. If you are interested, please contact Austin Fowler (Austin@housetohouse.com). You can begin by sending him the required information. It will take about ten days to design, print, and ship.