I can summarize my life message in one sentence: you can double a group in two years or less by inviting every member and every prospect to every fellowship every month.

A longer, one-paragraph version goes like this: A group of ten that doubles every eighteen months can reach a thousand people for God in ten years. One of the best ways of growing a group is through relationships. The gospel spreads best on the bridges of existing relationships. Donald McGavran called these The Bridges of God. Hospitality makes relational evangelism intentional evangelism. If we love them they will come and they will come to love our Lord. It is not enough to tell them about a God who loves them, we must love them. It is not enough to tell them the words about grace, we must be gracious to them.

Do the top 100 have anything to say about hospitality? Once again, let me quote the pastor of the nation’s largest church:

When I got out of Seminary I started working with High School students I learned two things real quick, number one. I learned it was possible to create environments where unchurched, unbelieving kids could come and even though they didn’t believe what we believe they would come back the next week to hear more. And I also learned a more important thing. I learned that if you can get unchurched, unbelieving people in a community of believers that are loving each other and caring for each other and being real Christians, that being in that community breaks down the barriers to unbelief. It strips away big objections—good God and bad things happening to good people and all those legitimate questions. You get somebody in the community where the church is being the church and somehow the edges get softer and people’s hearts open up and life change happens. And so, we started creating environments where kids started coming and lives started being changed and do you know where we got the resistance? From the church people! And so one night I am sitting in this meeting. It had been going an hour and a half because we had a band and video and stuff and there are all these wonderful church people … I know many of them, knew many of them for many years, some of them come here now. And the meeting was, “Andy, if you keep doing this, creating these environments, here is what is going to happen, and all the potential horrible stuff and sex drugs and rock and roll and whoa! It’s going to be terrible.

And I just kept thinking, “Where is this coming from?” Toward the end of the meeting a lady stood up toward my right. She is still a friend of mine. She stood up, tears in her eyes, her voice quivering, and she said, “I am amazed at what I have heard. For an hour I have listened to everyone talk about how afraid they are about what might happen. Can I tell you what has happened? My two sons, who have never been involved in a church look forward to every Wednesday night and never miss. And, it you shut down this program, I am afraid they will never step foot inside a church again.” She sat down.

And I made up my mind. I am going to spend the rest of my life finding people who understand that you can create environments in a local church that allow us to partner with people who are fishing. And I want to create environments for people and as they come and as they get involved in a community of believers their belief system begins to change, not because we have confronted, not because we give them specific answers to specific questions, although there is a time and a place of that. But, because they are in the presence, as much as they’ll ever be in the presence of the living savior.

The nation’s largest church is only nineteen years old. It was able to grow so rapidly (in part) because the pastor, Andy Stanley regularly stands before the people and says, “I am in a group that is doubling; I want you to be in a group that is doubling.”

They grow by creating environments where unchurched people can kick tires in an atmosphere of grace and acceptance. They have discovered that if they will love people, people’s hearts will warm up to a message about a God who loves them. They have discovered that if they are gracious to people, people’s hearts warm up to a message about grace. If they will befriend people, people will warm up to a message about, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”

North Point has grown by loving people in common, ordinary, pedestrian ways. But, they are not the only church that does.

Willow Creek and Matthew Parties

North Point is not the only top-100 churches that uses hospitality to reach people. Willow Creek uses hospitality as well. Bill Hybels calls them Matthew Parties. They are based on Jesus’ encounter with Matthew (also known as Levi). Here is the story from Luke 5.

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:27–32 (NIV)

Based on this example Bill Hybels and the people of Willow Creek use Matthew parties to build bridges to people who are far from God.

Willow Creek wrote a drama that I have used many times to communicate the value of hospitality. (If you would like to teach on the value of hospitality in your church, I strongly recommend you use this video. Available on Willow Creek’s website.) It features a character named Evan Powell who is the quintessential “Unchurched Harry.” He meets a woman he is interested in and she invites him to church. Not interested.

She invites him to a home group Bible Study. Not interested.

People from the Bible study invite him to go bowling. Not interested.

They invite him to dinner. Not interested.

They invite him to a music festival. Not interested.

They invite him to a vintage car show. Bingo. Evan can’t resist. He loves vintage cars. He goes to the vintage car show and discovers one of the guys in the group has two vintage cars. This guy invites him over to see the cars and a friendship develops. The friendship opens the door for Evan to become a friend of Jesus. Everything changes when we love people rather than just telling them about Christ’s love.

Josh Hunt, Doubling Groups 2.0 (Josh Hunt, 2015).