Does my responsibility end when I lead someone to Christ?

This is a question I have been asked a number of times when doing evangelism training. It’s also interesting to see what some people do with a person once they have had the honour of leading them to Christ. Some of what I am going to say may be obvious, but I am sure it won’t come as a surprise to any Pastors that may read this, because I am sure that they have seen what can happen more than I have.

I genuinely believe that effective follow up on a new believer is one of the essentials that is greatly lacking in the area of sowing, reaping and the really vital point of keeping. When we have won a person to the Lord, it’s very important that every one of us should have a desire to do our own follow-up work. It should bring us great joy when seeing those people we know, or have met and won for Christ coming to church. At Gospel One To One we believe in keeping things simple. As a sales trainee and then a sales trainer we were told to K.I.S.S. our listeners. In other words to ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’. Actually, the ‘stupid’ part is directed at the trainer, speaker or writer. Oh! That’s me isn’t it?

My eldest daughter and her husband who were not following the Lord at the time, decided one day out of the blue to go to church. At the meeting they accepted Christ and gave their address and phone number to one of the leaders of the church. The following week they had a visit from one of the leadership who amongst other things brought a bank direct debit form with him and asked them to complete it to pay their tithe. I believe in tithing, but I think that perhaps it was a little early to be doing that, and it’s not the type of follow up I am going to talk about today.

Key Point: The truth is that your responsibility and care never really ends

I suppose the truth is that your responsibility and care never really ends as the new believer should always be in your heart. Anyway, here are a few pointers that I think are important.

The points are basic. KISS.

• Make sure you have accurate contact details: Make a point to explain that they will be contacted by someone from the church.
• Tell your pastor or church leader about the person you have just won to Christ: Your leader should encourage you and get the news around the rest of the leadership and the church prayer team.
• Make sure you pray for the person every day by name.
• Check that your church sends out a welcome letter signed by the Pastor within the first seven days. If they don’t do that, handwrite one yourself.
• Contact them on Saturday to remind them about Sunday services.
• For their first Sunday visit, make sure that you either bring them along yourself, or wait at the door for them until they arrive.
• Give them a church welcome pack on arrival.
• Introduce them to the Pastor / leaders of your church.
• Introduce them to positive joyful Christians. For example saying “Hi, this is Bill. He accepted Christ last Friday”. The positive Christian will reinforce the life changing decision the new believer has made.
• Make sure you sit with them during the meeting, unless you are involved in some other ministry. You will be surprised that some people will find the new believer a seat and then leave them alone and go and sit somewhere else. It’s very likely that they have lots of questions for you to answer.
• Invite them to midweek meetings, talk about what happens in these services and be excited about them, but don’t pressure them.
• Contact them as before on the Saturday to remind them about the next Sunday services and arrange to either pick them up or meet them at the door for the next day.
• Arrange to informally meet them for a coffee or chat.
• Check that one of the church leadership has arranged to meet with them; perhaps you will be able to go along as well. The leader will deal with tithing, baptism and church membership at the right time. This could be during a new converts class or similar.
• Continue to maintain contact with them
• Continue to pray for them
• Let them know you are available if they need help
• Remember that we are not responsible for changing them. The Holy Spirit does that.
• Encourage them to tell others about the decision they have made.
• As I said earlier, the points I have made are very simple. They should help to ensure that we keep as many new Christians as possible. My wife and I are still in contact with the people that were responsible for telling us about Jesus. The responsibility never really stops does it?
• You may have some other “Do’s” or even “Don’ts”. Let me know.