The Sunday Invitation!

Our thirteen-year-old granddaughter, Eloise, is blossoming into a beautiful young lady. She has a smart mind, intuitive emotional make-up, and a loving spirit with her siblings. She is a good friend to several girls in her class and is growing in her spiritual life. She attends church, participates in the youth program, and regularly volunteers her time for service opportunities. Her favorite summer service is teaching younger children during Vacation Bible School! Her daddy, Mimi, and Poppi, too, are proud of the Christian young person she is becoming!

The Sunday Invitation!
Image credit: pinterest.com

This precious grand keeps connected with her friends at school, during track practice, and after-school phone calls. But, she really enjoys those frequent in-person social events that include sleepovers. She recently had a sleepover at her dad’s house with a special friend.

The girls spent Saturday night in the downstairs game room with technology and comfy lounge couches. Then, they went to church the next morning and enjoyed the youth activities and service. They wrapped up the morning with brunch at a favorite restaurant. It was the perfect sleepover!

What blessed me is that our teenage granddaughter wanted to share the experience of her church with this close friend who doesn’t regularly attend a house of worship! This is what we are expected to do as a believing faith community – each one reach one!

Andrew, one of Jesus’ first followers, has the reputation in the Bible of bringing others to Jesus. He is the disciple who spoke up just before Jesus performed the miracle of feeding a crowd of over five thousand who had come to hear Him preach and teach, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9).

It was also Andrew who introduced his brother, Simon Peter to Jesus. The Scriptures record this conversation, “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.” (John 1:41-42, NIV).

Our son, Matt had a follow-up conversation with Eloise about the blessing of extending “The Sunday Invitation” to her sleep-over friend. He noted that she often thinks of Poppi in a church context. (And that’s true because I am often at my church serving as a Care Pastor! All my grands must think I live there!)

Then, Matt asked his beloved daughter a pointed question during that reflection, “Did you realize that Poppi started going to church because a neighbor invited him? Back in that day when he was a boy, his parents didn’t take him to church. It was a friend across the street, with whom he played baseball, who invited him and gave him a ride to his church. That “Sunday Invitation” changed Poppi’s life! And by the way, Poppi, and that neighbor friend, both became pastors!

This is the Easter season when many are thinking about church events. Soon, there will be Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday services. These become excellent opportunities to extend to our unchurched friends, “The Sunday Invitation!” This could be God’s way of transforming the life of a neighbor, close friend, or family member. Who could you invite to a church service these days?

Mike Keppler, retired pastor,
active churchman and
doting grandparent.
Contact: drmjkeppler@gmail.com
©2018-2026 All rights reserved.
Serve by Design. mjkministries.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Pray and Move Your Feet!"

Image
There is an old West African proverb: “When you pray, move your feet.” I have said something similar in a little different way: “Be careful in your praying. You may be (and often are!) the answer to your own prayer.” Others see this almost as a command to “Put feet to your prayers!” What do we mean by these various sayings? Prayer is not just an important spiritual discipline for the Christian, it often leads to an “in the flesh” response and connection between the pray-er and the prayer request. Prayer and Action! pngimg.com While prayer is one of the spiritual disciplines, this doesn't mean it is just an academic, theoretical or forensic exercise! I have heard it said, "God inhabits the praises of His people." This suggests that it blesses God to hear the praise of His people in prayer. I believe that the Lord gets an even greater blessing when our praying is “incarnated” in devotion, commitment and service for Him. Our best efforts at praying involve action plans to ...
Read more

A Reminder of Hope!

Image
After all these years, I am still filled with joy and feel a childlike giddiness when I see one of God’s colorful “bows” arcing across the sky. I can’t count how many times I have invited family and friends to come to the window or step outside to see the unfolding drama in God’s message of hope in a rainbow arcing across the sky! God's Handiwork! Our son recently sent me a picture that perfectly captures God’s creative handwork in a beautiful rainbow. As is typical, a thunderstorm and downpour drenched his neighborhood. He and his daughter had stepped out the front door to survey for any wind damage. Looking up, they beheld the stunning perfection of dazingly colors in layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Many of us have heard about the science of rainbows. Simply stated, they develop as light from the sun is refracted through the water droplets after a rain. Mathematicians add that rainbows are all about geometry. They occur when the sun is low in the...
Read more

Grumpy and Crotchety!

Image
Just the other day, I watched a humorous interview with a preteen. This occurred on an afternoon entertainment news program. What caught my attention in this brief and show-ending feature was that this youth was explaining her bad attitude while riding in the passenger seat of the family car. She was speaking to one of her parents as she made this adult-like excuse, “I’ve been crotchety since I was nine!”  Image: freepik.com I have enjoyed watching the Grumpy Old Men movies (1993, 1995) several times. The original film featured three of my favorite actors: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Ann-Margret, It’s a story of two men, Max Goldman and John Gustafson who are neighbors and lifelong friends that find themselves competing for the affections of a beautiful woman,   Ariel Truax, who lived across the street from both men, Matthau and Lemmon with deadpan humor do a masterful job of bringing their characters to life in an uproariously funny and absurd way! I’ve had my own grum...
Read more