Who to invite

In a sense, this is a course for every Christian—because it is about the normal Christian life. It aims to demonstrate that the course of the normal Christian life is one where we not only strive towards maturity in Christ ourselves, but where we long to see others grow to maturity as well. In this sense, it’s not really designed to be an evangelistic program for outsiders or for those on the fringes of our congregations who are still some distance from the kingdom. It’s aimed at the large majority of people in our churches who are Christian but have not yet really grasped what it means to be a ‘disciple-making disciple’. This may leave you thinking, “Well, I can think of lots of those! Who should I invite to do the course?”

Again, this relates to your larger purpose in training a team of disciple-making disciples. The best people to start with are probably those whom you think have the most potential to join you in training others.

How to invite

Before you issue invitations for people to join a group in which you’ll be running The Course of Your Life, make sure you’ve nailed down the key details—in particular, the venue and dates for the intensive. It is important that people know exactly what they’re signing up for, and are willing to commit the necessary time. Make this really clear when you’re talking to people about doing the course—they need to give a firm commitment, including to the intensive and the one-to-one meetings.

A useful way to handle the invitation process is to send a course brochure to people with a cover letter explaining why you’re inviting them and what the key dates are, and mentioning that you will follow up with a call in the near future. A sample brochure and invitation letter are available for download. Instead of (or as well as) a brochure, you could also send people a link to the course invitation video on YouTube or the course promotional video (or embed these videos on your own church website).