February 2, 2021

Is the church responsible to follow-up with visitors and is this Biblical?

By Tim

First, let’s define the church. It’s not a building it’s a people. We are the temple and building of God as noted in Ephesians 2:19-22 and elsewhere. Therefore, “follow-up” is not a business exercise for people who visit a building. This is the HUGE detriment our 21st century church “model.” We must remember the church in the New Testament, flourished in homes and grew from there. Today, we think the other way around. We think we get the building and push people back into “small groups.” Thus, the corporate entity runs the mechanisms, but the family/home, was the originator in the New Testament. 

Therefore, since we are a family and a people, the idea of “follow-up” being the responsibility of an “entity” is foreign. All believers are commanded to engage in fellowship (getting together with believers in their home) and hospitality (welcoming in the un-believer to their home).

This means that follow-up is the active duty and joy of the Christian believer. Any entity trying to think theologically about how to engage outsiders, should press out this joy into each person, rather than taking on the responsibility as a corporation to do it. This simply removes joy from believers, responsibility, and obedience, and makes for an increasingly weaker Body of Christ.

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