Preaching to goats?

[Boo]

As far as I can tell, most churches seek to build their membership by poaching members from other churches. I can count on one hand the number of people I've met in any church who were straight up unchurched before coming to that particular church. One of my pet peaves is other Christians trying to poach me from my faith community. They talk to me, I clearly identify that I have a community, and they invite me to come try their church anyway. Really? That's kind of rude.

Also, making a disciple is not the ame as making a convert. Only God can make a convert (Matthew 16:17 and John 6:44). Discipleship is a process of teaching and learning. When you see Jesus with His disciples He is constantly teaching them, explaining things to them.... they already believe.

Finally, the "preaching to the goats" analogy isn't a good one because in the parable of the sheep and the goats - both groups call him Lord. They're all Christians. But, half failed to actually follow his teachings.

Ouch! You feel that it is rude to invite people to your church if they are members somewhere else? Do you actually believe it is wrong to suggest to a friend that he or she come visit with you and your own church?

Jesus told us to go and make disciples and teach them. He did not tell us to go find disciples and teach them. There is a big difference.

[Zaida]

I only invite people to my meeting if we have a special event going on, or if they have expressed that they're unhappy with their current worship community in some way. I also only attend other people's churches/meetings if there's a special event going on. If I am travelling or can't get to meeting for worship for some other reason - I usually go to a Catholic Mass. I am a long term member of our localC.S. Lewis Society. We have several denominations represented, and somehow we all get along and respect eachother as Christians without trying to corral us all into one church. I think most of us feel our little community would be less rich if we were all in the same tradition.

But, if a person says that they have a worship community and that they're happy in it -yes, I think it's rude and disrespectful to try and poach them to your own community. There's a big mega church (though it's on the decline) around here that the members act like if you don't go there you don't really go to church at all. It annoys me endlessly.

I recently got married. My husband and I are both Quakers, so we had a traditional Quaker wedding. About half the people at the wedding were non-Quakers. Most the non-Quakers said they thought it was interesting and there was something they liked about it. A couple might come back.