Giving Time for Contacts to "Mature"

Sometime it just takes a while for personal contacts to "mature."

This past Sunday our elders interviewed a couple for church membership that I first met about 20 years ago. The husband was a reporter for our local paper and attended a service to cover some story he was working on. Sunday he told us that he never forgot the impression that the service made on him. So when his own church began to fall into some troubling doctrinal problems, they decided to join ours.

Just tonight I had a conversation with a couple I've known for 10 years or so through a community organization that we are part of. They had been talking to several of our members about our church and were impressed by their enthusiasm. I don't know if they'll decide to try out our church (I never try to "recruit" members from other churches), but if they do, it will be the culmination of years of personal relationship with them.

I could tell lots of similar stories of the benefits of "sticking around" and getting to know people in the community outside the church. These are opportunities that would never mature if the church traded pastors every five to seven years.