Sammy Gilbreath said if a pastor woke up on Sunday morning and God told him, “Today is going to be Joe’s last Sunday,” he bets the message and invitation “would have a sense of urgency about it.”
“Because we don’t know who will be back, approach every invitation with that kind of urgency,” said Gilbreath, retired director of the office of evangelism at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
Gilbreath taught a breakout session at the Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference on Jan. 27 on the topic of How to Give an Evangelistic Invitation.
He gave six aspects of an effective invitation.
1. The invitation has got to burn with compassion.
Gilbreath said that in college, a debate professor told him to choose a spot on the back wall and stare at it while he talked.
“That might be good for a debate, but it’s horrible for a pastor,” Gilbreath said. “I want you to look them straight in the face and be compassionate.”
2. The invitation has to be bold because of consecration.
“I can’t give an invitation because I’m perfect, but I can give it because I’m clean,” Gilbreath said. “How am I going to preach on the sanctity of marriage and I’m being unfaithful to my wife?
Sin is alive and well, and “Satan is trying to destroy us,” he said. “If he destroys our preaching and our credibility, we can’t give that invitation.”
3. The invitation has to be beautiful because of clarity.
Gilbreath said Evangelist Billy Graham would start giving his invitation the moment he stood up to speak.
“He would say a dozen times, ‘in just a moment I’m going to ask you to get up out of your chair and come down here,’” Gilbreath said.
Everyone there knew what was coming and what they would be asked to do, he said. “Clarity is so, so important. Make sure that you have prepared ahead of time what you want to emphasize in that invitation and how you’re going to emphasize it and it is perfectly clear to them.”
4. The invitation should be born out of claiming others to be saved.
Gilbreath said when he gives an invitation, he also often asks people to come forward to pray for someone they know who doesn’t know Christ yet.
“What I’ve done is set the table for the next Sunday and the next Sunday,” he said. “Your invitation needs to be building for weeks to come as they’re praying for those people who are lost.”
Claim others in that invitation time, Gilbreath said.
5. The invitation should be a time backed by counselors.
Gilbreath said even though he chose the word “counselors” here, churches shouldn’t call them counselors because they aren’t licensed professional counselors — these are deacons, Bible study leaders or others trained in evangelism.
Congregations can get in legal trouble if they call their leaders “counselors,” he said.
But enlisting church members to be ready to help at the invitation is vital, Gilbreath said. A pastor could spend 10 minutes with the first person who comes forward, and there needs to be someone to talk with anyone else who comes.
6. The invitation has to be bathed in celebration.
Make sure the invitation has a place to celebrate what God has just done, Gilbreath said.
He also suggested some elements of the invitation that pastors should think through.
Elements of the invitation itself
- Be aware of your voice.
Gilbreath said people need to know when the message is transitioning into the invitation. One way to do that is to be aware of your voice, he said.
“I realized pausing and lowering my voice was just as much of an emphasis as raising my voice,” he said. “I’m sending a message with my voice that we’re transitioning.”
- Be patient.
Gilbreath suggested taking the timing of both the message and the invitation into consideration when planning the service. When you do this, you can afford to be patient and give people time to respond without the congregation getting restless because you’re running over time, he said.
- Plan your music.
“Many many times I’ve gotten to the invitation, and we drop the ball with the music because I haven’t told the minister of music what my plan is for the invitation,” Gilbreath said.
An invitation should seem like it’s on purpose, not like it is thrown together at the end, he said.
- Use variety.
Gilbreath cautioned against doing the invitation the same way every time — people may tune out what you’re saying, he said.
- Have a sense of urgency.
As Gilbreath said earlier, you never know when a service will be someone’s last.
But it also might be your last, he said. “What would I want to plead with them on this last opportunity?”
Share with others: