Friend Day 3/23/08

On Easter Sunday March 23, 2008 Anchor Baptist Church had our first annual Friend Day at Anchor Baptist Church. Four weeks previously, I had taken the initiative to try and make our day successful by setting a numerical goal of people we would like to see present. I learned a long time ago two things that helped me be motivated to be successful. "If you aim at nothing you will usually hit it." Also, "That people are the most important thing." We were wanting to minister, preach the gospel to and help people. So our goal was a good starting point for the church. I set the goal at 45 which would be the highest attendance the church had seen since Grace and arrived. I also asked our people to get involved by introducing the idea of four forms of commitments for our members to help make our day a success.

1. The first was to have each member personally sign a commitment card saying they would be present on that day unless sick or providentially hindered.

2. The second aspect to the involvement of the members was to take a number related to how many people they wanted to personally commit to trying to bring for that day. I had slips of paper with the numbers 1-5 on them separately. They could then take the number and pray for that many to come as their guest.

3. The third way for involvement was to have flyers, tracts, and commitment cards available for the members to give out to their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and general people in the community. The flyers and tracts were to be handed out over the next four weeks. The commitment cards for visitors were to be taken and signed by other people that our members had invited. The purpose for this was to have a church record of those we had invited. Each of the visitor commitment cards that someone signed to be present with us for the service that day were then turned in. The members commitment card was then placed on the wall of the church with sticky tact. Underneath their card was each of the visitor's cards representing the people they had invited. This way each member of the church could be reminded of their individual progress by having the commitment cards displayed. Through this they also could be reminded to pray for their own commitment and to pray for those they invited and who had committed to them.

4. The final way to help was to go out canvassing. We were able to have approximately 1000 flyers handed out all over the town of Farmville with the weeks preceding the event. My wife and I alone handed out over 700.

A wise man once said, "Work as if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God!" We tried to do that. The end result was a total attendance of 51!!!! We praise the Lord for answered prayer.