Everybody likes pie, right? You might be like me and prefer cake, but if a good pie is sitting in front of you, you still have to eat a slice (and then another and then another and then another…). Pie is so good, in fact, that I think we should have a month dedicated to it.
Obviously, being Baptist, we love to eat. But the pie I’m thinking of is actually not the kind you eat off a saucer. You see, despite being Baptist and thus evangelical (in the historical-theological sense of the word), we tend to have a problem with evangelism. To remind myself of this, I keep a little chart with some stats from LifeWay Research taped to my office wall.
In their Transformational Discipleship research, they found that 80% of self-identified protestant church goers agreed that sharing their faith with non-Christians was important. But then, in practice, 61% had not shared their faith with anyone in the previous 6-months and 48% had not invited anyone to church in the same time period.
It seems that in our churches we do a great job at teaching people that sharing the gospel is important but we do a poor job at leading our people to do just that. So, I try to find simple and creative ways to remind and encourage the people in my church to share. And this is where pie comes in.
Pie, or PIE, is an acronym for Pray, Invite, and Explain. PIE month, then, goes like this: In the next month (1) Pray daily for at least one person you know who is not a follower of Jesus, (2) each week Invite at least one person to come to church with you (presumably a person not already actively involved in a church somewhere), and (3) Explain the gospel and/or your testimony of faith to at least one person (and it would make sense, even, if this were the person you were praying for).
At my church, I’m aiming for my PIE month to be April. Easter tends to be a time that people not active in church are more inclined to visit (at least for a week). So, I want to use that ingrained momentum to build a string of intentional invites.
And here’s my hope: Not only that this would encourage us to be more faithful in sharing the gospel, but that it wouldn’t stop with one month. No, I hope that the people in my church realize how delicious pie really is and each month becomes a new PIE month with new invites and more people hearing the gospel.
So, how about you? Are you in? Will you join us with a PIE month of your own? Pull up a chair and I’ll grab you a fork…
Image used with permission from pixabay.com