The next day Jesus wanted to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.” Nathanael responded, “Can anything from Nazareth be good?” Philip said, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here is a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are God’s Son. You are the king of Israel.” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these! I assure you that you will see heaven open and God’s angels going up to heaven and down to earth on the Human One.” (John 1:43-51, CEB)
Come and see.
When was the last time you invited someone to worship?
When I was in seminary, over 19 years ago now we talked about Lutherans inviting people to worship. Back then the statistic was the average Lutheran invited someone to worship, once every 17 years. I did a search on Google to see what I could find quickly when writing this and Google AI overview said, “According to recent surveys, Lutherans are considered among the least likely to invite people to church, with a significant portion reporting they haven’t invited anyone in the past six months; this means many Lutherans may not actively invite people to church very often, if at all.”
How are they to know if they do not get invited to come?
And if I as a pastor invite someone to come they are less likely to come than if a non pastor asks them to come.
Come and see!
Loving People. Loving God.
aSacredRebel 