The Struggle of Building an Invitation Culture

Pastors have always believed that the best way to grow a church is through the invitations of current attendees.

I believed this. I still do.

Of course, trying to get people excited about inviting others feels like pushing a proverbial rock up a hill. Or maybe more like pushing hundreds of unwilling rocks up a hill—all of them silently (or not so silently) resisting.

So what do we do? How do we get people excited about invitations? 

• We share stories of invitations.
• We come up with catchy phrases like “You have no idea what hangs in the balance of an invitation.”
• We design services and events with guests in mind.
• We tell people over and over: Invite. Invite. INVITE!

Then, we try to up our game each week—offering something new or innovative to entice people to invite. We open with a secular song (like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”) or change stage designs to match our sermon series.

It’s cool. It’s fun. It’s different. “It’s not your grandma’s church!”

Some people invite their friends. But most don’t.

But there is one foolproof way to energize your church around invitations. That’s what this post is about.

Let’s talk about my biggest mistake when building an invitation culture—and what you can do differently.

The Invitation Culture Mistake I Made

When I became a lead pastor, I wanted to create a church that unchurched people would love. And we did just that. Our church grew from 200 to nearly 1,000 in a year.

We built this growth on a strategy we called Invest & Invite.

• We encouraged our church to invest in others and invite them to attend when the timing was right.
• We designed Sunday services with guests in mind—removing churchy language, using engaging worship styles, and littering the building with smiling Guest Services volunteers.
• We leveraged cultural—using lights, hazers, and secular openers to create buzz.

And it worked. Really well.

I invited people every single week. I’d say things like:

“You just gotta come see the thing!”
“Our church isn’t like anything you’ve seen before.”

When my atheist tennis partner finally took me up on my offer, I felt like I’d won.

But here’s the problem.

“Come sit with me” so you can experience a church like you’ve never seen before is a terrible reason to invite someone to church.

It gets people in the door. But that’s not our mission.

Here’s a post I wrote in 2015 that exemplifies my perspective back then. 

Why Do We Exist? (Hint: It’s Not to Fill a Room)

The Great Commission describes our mission: to reach and teach.

That’s why we hold church services. That’s the function of the Body of Christ.

We don’t exist to fill rooms. We exist to introduce people to Jesus.

And this is where invest & invite to experience the “thing” fails over time.

If the win is to “come see the thing,” invitations eventually dry up.

Here’s what happens:

✅ People invite others because they’re excited about the thing. Especially people new to the “thing.”
✅ Over time, the thing stops feeling new, fun, or engaging.
✅ Invitations slow down.
✅ The invitation culture dies.

And even worse—when people do accept an invitation and realize all they experienced was a thing (not something transformational), we’ve failed in our mission.

So how do we fix it?

Building a Better Invitation Culture

Let’s begin by asking the right question:

Why should people invite others to church?

And no—the answer isn’t so they can see “the thing.”

A Biblical Model for Invitations

Let’s take a page from Phillip and Nathanael in John 1:45-46:

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

Nathanael’s response? A passive-aggressive “Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?”

Philip simply says:

“Come and see.”

A lot of churches adopt this phrase as their invitation model. “Come and see.” “Come sit with me.”

But if we neglect what Philip invited Nathanael to come and see, we miss the entire point.

Philip wasn’t inviting him to check out the cool church in town.
Philip wasn’t inviting him to an experience.
Philip wasn’t inviting him to a slick worship set.

Philip invited Nathanael to meet Jesus.

That’s the only foundation for an invitation culture that lasts and directly connects to our mission.

Two Steps You Can (Should) Take Right Now

If you want to build a healthy, sustainable invitation culture, here’s where to start:

1. Disciple Who You Have First

Before you ever ask your people to invite others, focus on discipling them.

Because people who are growing spiritually will naturally care about the spiritual lives of their friends, family, and coworkers.

They won’t need to be pressured into inviting. They’ll want to invite.

If people only show up to consume the thing, they’ll eventually leave when consuming the thing stops being worth their time.

Making disciples is the mission—and it begins with the people already in your church.

2. Emphasize the Spiritual Necessity of an Invitation

Stop asking people to invite others to a thing. Start inspiring them to invite people to meet Jesus.

Paul drives this home in Romans 10:14-15:

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

✅ Invitations should be about salvation.
✅ Invitations should be about eternity.

Churches that make invitations about the experience will see invitation culture fade. Our church services should be good experiences, but the experience isn’t the point.

Churches that make invitations about Jesus will see lives changed.

Because people don’t need another thing to consume.

They need a Savior.

And that’s a message worth sharing.

Call to Action:

How is your church approaching invitations? Are you discipling your congregation so they naturally invite others to meet Jesus? Are you creating an invitation culture that prioritizes a person over the experience?

Quotes for Inspiration:

“The Church doesn’t need a better invitation strategy. It needs disciples who can’t help but invite others to meet Jesus.”

One More Thing…

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Leading WITH You,
Dr. Gavin Adams