We're coming to the end of the Summer again. Children will be back in school next week.  Families are coming back from vacations and back from the lake.  New families have moved into our community.  It's time now to start gathering the flock (so to speak).
  In the next month there will be plenty of reasons to invite someone to church or a church activity. Our big Kick-Off Sunday is September 8, our Wednesday Night Program (with great opportunities for all ages) begins September 11 (or 18^th).  We have a golf tournament October 13.  There is lot's more to come.
  Now that you are aware of the need, and frozen with fear at the thought of inviting someone to church, I want to share with you some letters from Disciples just like you, who have discovered truths about those "unchurched" people that we "faithful Christians" fear so much:
  "It's kinda silly to caricature the folks outside the church -- since most of us have been there at one time or another.  It doesn't do a whole lot of good to act like everyone who isn't "churched" (funny word, that) is drowning in a sea of licentiousness and evil.  People in the church and out of it are concerned about much the same things -- we probably will connect with outsiders better if we appeal to the "religious impulse" that all people have, but not everyone knows how to respond to.
  The truth is that we mainliners do not "talk" well with non-Christians.  In fact it's been so long since we've done it that we've forgotten how.  The result is that unchurched persons find us more and more irrelevant.  The answer is easy -- we need to talk again with our culture, with people who don't come to church.  But how do we do that?
  How about, for starters, remembering that they are just PEOPLE, just like us.  With normal prob