Making Them Stick!

As you think about "Assimilation" be sure you understand the difference between assimilation and spiritual formation. I define assimilation as the process of getting people who are far from God and far from the church "connected" to a local Body of believers. If done well, this will happen before they even come to a personal faith in Jesus.

Once someone is "connected" to us, then we have the opportunity (and responsibility) to engage them in an intentional process of spiritual formation. However, the first goal is to assimilate them, or get them into a relationship with us. Of course they have to choose to be in this relationship, but we should do everything within our power to reach out, invest in them, shower them with the love of Christ, and establish a definite bond.

Too many times we focus on worship attendance as our measure of success. Truthfully, many people who attend worship services are not really assimilated. I encourage you to create a practical, realistic, measurable system for assimilating new people into your fellowship. If you need help give us a call. This is one of the three critical systems that every church needs to have to be healthy.