Comments on: Social Acceptance: A Missional Metric

By: Jon Reid

Jon Reid — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:01:56 +0000

josenmiami, that's great!

Next: Notice how often spiritual topics come up in conversation. Because my friends know I'm a Christian, they're not thrown off if I bring up a spiritual slant that fits naturally into a conversation. In fact, more often than not, I don't need to, because they do.

Bonus: If you don't have the gift of evangelism, find someone who does. Take that person with you.

Above all, pray before you go. Pray while you're there having a good time. Ask the Lord to show you what he's up to.

By: josenmiami

josenmiami — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:59:09 +0000

thats a good one, and very encouraging to me … I get more invitations to parties, to go dancing, bars, birthdays, etc every week than I can possibly respond to.

good to know I am on the right track.

joe

By: Jon Reid

Jon Reid — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:23:10 +0000

jorgebessa, that might be an example of "gaming the system" to improve numbers. Can we measure attendance at an event without that measurement eventually compromising our focus? I think we can.

By: jorgebessa

jorgebessa — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:00:43 +0000

Great! The problem with “attractional metric” is that it sometimes it leads to a “compromised preaching”. Even when churches don’t compromise the Truth in what is preached, sometimes the wholeness of the Truth is compromised by selecting what can be said or not. Thanks for sharing it.

By: Jon Reid

Jon Reid — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:20:21 +0000

Thanks, Jeremy!
An important thing about social acceptance is that it does not require the gift of evangelism. So I would encourage you to point the folks who struggle with evangelism in this direction. Then identify the people who *are* gifted in evangelism, and drag them along to the parties, concerts, etc.

By: Jeremy Hoover

Jeremy Hoover — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:22:46 +0000

Jon, I love the concept of measuring via "number of invitations by non-Christians."

Christians who really struggle with evangelism should continue to be encouraged to simply invite others to their gatherings, but over time, the metric of integration you mentioned should be key because it's really measuring how well we are building real relationships with others.

I can easily throw out very casual invitations to people I don't even know that well, go to church, and talk about how many people I'm inviting. Or I can honestly examine my life, as you suggest, to see how many non-Christians I'm seriously engaged with.

Thanks for sharing this.