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I haven't posted much on this for a long time, but this vision is still alive and well within The River. It's partof our DNA, it's how the River Family lives out their faith. Less about inviting people to a service and more about leaving the building and building relationships.

Have a read and let me know what you think. This is taken from Simple Church Journal.

"For years, the dominating church growth models have been centered around activity driving attendance to a meeting (inviting) with the hope that as people enter the building and experience God through the church service (having a rightly planned order of service) the invited will come away having been impacted and return inviting their friends and family. Jesus was less concerned about inviting people to experience God through a meeting and more concerned about meeting them where they were as he and the disciples went along the way.

When our neighbor calls me and asks if we can pick up her daughter from day care because she will be late from work. When another neighbor calls at 12 midnight and asks if we can drive them to the hospital because their daughter has an allergy attack. When a neighbor asks if we can accompany them to the grocery because they have a lot to buy. is that "going"?

A group of us go out onto the streets and offer to pray for people, we pray for healing, personal circumstances, ask God for words of knowledge and prophecy, we sometimes lead people in a prayer of salvation if and when we discern they are ready, we have just started meeting in McDonald's every other week so we can invite people for a free cuppa and connect them up, we're trying to be intentional and build community where they are.

80% of Canadians today will never enter a church. So how can we reach these 80% if we use the strategy of inviting them to come? The only way is to invite them to our homes where they do not feel threatened and do not think they will be bombarded by church stuff. It still starts with our going to where they are, start a relationship so that we come to a point where we can ask them to come to our home for a meal.

…a phrase we have been using in our house church is 'making disciples who make disciples', it's not a hanging on to people to build up an ever growing pyramid system of structure and leadership but an equipping and releasing mind-set."