Recently I had a great call with a fellow pastor about the topic of church growth.

I told him one of the myths that was busted in 2020 was the idea of belong before you believe.

It's not completely untrue or irrelevant but I think many well-meaning people in the church growth space oversold the idea that people should or could belong before they believe.

Just think about it. If someone doesn't have at least a kernel of belief why would they want to belong to a particular community that was centered on that belief? When it comes to Christianity and the church I firmly believe, no pun intended, that we must do a better job of planting the seeds of belief in the days and years to come.

What does that mean practically?

It means creating accessible pathways for people to engage with the truth of the Christian faith.

Some call it apologetics or worldview work.

Others might refer to this as evangelism.

Whatever you call it...we need to do more of it and do it better!

Several years ago I read an excellent book called "Tactics" by Gregory Koukl that shared the idea of having conversations with lost people that leave them with what he called "a stone in their shoe." The idea behind this is that the unbeliever leaves the conversation with a believer doubting their own disbelief. Something not quite right about their worldview or thoughts...

You can do that by questioning their doubt.

That "stone" becomes uncomfortable.

They can't live with it...and it forces them to seek answers.

And ultimately leads them to seek faith in Jesus.

One of the best ways I've discovered for doing this exact thing is with simple Facebook ads.

Most pastors don't realize how powerful of a tool it really is.

If I told you that in three days time you could preach a message to your entire city and it would only cost you a few hundred dollars would you do it? My guess is you would! And yet we often bulk at spending $5 to $10 a day on a platform like Facebook to share the gospel and invite people to church.

I get it.

There's a tech barrier.

And fear of the unknown.

Well, let's deal with both of those issues right now.

I've put together a simple, step by step training video on how to launch your first Facebook invite ad.

It's called "Facebook Launch" and for a limited time you can pay what you want to get access to it.

Yep. Hard to beat that.

You can pay $1, $5, $10 or whatever you can afford.

Because I want to take the "sting" out of using this great tool to invite people to church and share the gospel.

Here's the link:

Go here to grab the training.

Increasing Belief,

Pastor Jake Schmelzer

p.s. This is the last day I’m making this available so grab it while you can. Here's the link to Greg's book "Tactics" - it's a must read IMHO.

Great Free Resources:

Update: Yesterday, I sent out a link to get a free book “StoryGrid: How To Write Stories People Love” but I heard from some subscribers that the link to get the book wasn’t working for them. Here it is again…

Click here to get the StoryGrid book for free!

Up next…

Want to create a discipleship pathway for members in your church without giving up an extra day of the week? What if you could have some of the best Bible teachers in the world teach it? Sound good?

Check out this FREE training I put together for you…

“Discipleship Track In 1 Day”

Click here to watch the training (FREE).

Last but not least…

The Smarter Brain

Great thought-provoking ideas and actionable reads to help you build better habits and become more productive. Always something useful!

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