Invite Culture Problems? Stop Blaming Your People.

About this episode

Rich Birch discusses the misconceptions around invite culture in churches and emphasizes that the issue lies not with the people but with the preparation and training they receive.

Your people aren’t broken. Here’s what’s really going on. Three weeks after I got my driver’s license, I put my car in a ditch. This was back when you could walk into the licensing office on your sixteenth birthday, get a learner’s permit, and … within a few weeks … be fully licensed, no restrictions, no supervision. And that was me. Sixteen years old, license in my wallet, and a car I was allowed to drive anywhere. It was a Christmas party, which meant it was a winter night. I was driving home with friends, a paved road transitioning to gravel, and I hit that washboard effect … the tires skittering sideways in a way I’d never felt before. My car did something I wasn’t expecting. I overcorrected and we ended up nose-down in the ditch on the wrong side of the road. Here’s the thing: I was fully licensed. I’d passed the test, on paper, and I knew how to drive. I just hadn’t been trained for that specific moment. Nobody had taken me out to a gravel road and said, This is what washboard feels like, this is what your car will do, and this is how you respond. The gap between licensed and actually prepared put me in a ditch. I think about that night almost every time a pastor tells me…

People in this episode

Host: Rich Birch

Topics covered

• invite culture
• leadership
• church growth
• community engagement
• pastoral challenges

Keywords

• invite culture
• church leadership
• pastoral advice
• community
• engagement
• training
• misconceptions

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