That right there was my inspiration for inviting people to “Friend Day” at church.  For those who didn’t grow up in church or didn’t get the joy of having Friend Day, it’s one Sunday a year where EVERYONE invites neighbors, classmates, friends, maids, garbage men, etc to church.  They didn’t even have to be your friend.

Now, I could take this post the route of “Every Sunday should be Friend Day,” but I’m not going to do that.  That would be too easy and quite frankly, kind of fundamentalist of me.

I don’t know about you, but at our church we had a goal.  A number that we all were trying to hit.  If we did, something bad happened to our pastor.  If we didn’t, we still would give our effort a standing ovation when the total was announced the following week. (Once, all our friends were gone of course.)

“Last week we had 577 friends that came.  A little short of the 700 we wanted but still an amazing number.  Oh, and the winner of the potluck dinner for having the most friends in Sunday School is…. drum roll please, oh wait, we don’t have drums… the 60-65 class!”

In the end, Friend Day was about getting people’s contact information.  That way the church can send them a few letters a week, call them and email them. The most popular way to get in touch, though, was Visitation Night.  Every Monday night we had to gather to go visit “prospects.”  This turned into some of the most awkward moments of my life.  Visiting your friend from school with a random adult and being in the same room as the adult asks some of the most uncomfortable questions imaginable was just awkward.  For everyone.  I imagine that God was even cringing.

By the time I was in high school I would encourage my friends not to fill out the card.  (I know that was wrong of me, but they would have been seriously bombarded and I’m the one that heard the complaints.) I still invited them though and that has to count for something. I did my part to see the pastor with a shaved head.

As a pastor this had to be a humbling time. If you are reviving something that means it was close to death. So you hire someone to come in and revive it. Or as I saw it as a kid, scare the crap out of everyone.

The evangelist would get up and go easy on us Sunday night. There wasn’t a “theme” attached to that night so he had to save his good stuff. There would be themes such as “College Night” or “Friend Night”, but the best one was “Youth Night.”

Give the kids free pizza and pie some leaders in the face and then death march them one by one from the fellowship hall to the auditorium. The church I went to would actually put up rope fences and have adults watch you as you walk to prevent any sneaky youths from ripping them off for free pizza.

The message that night was always, and I mean always, “The Wheat and the Tares.” I used to think in evangelist school that was your final exam sermon. “Bro. Samuel, work on the “Tare” part of your sermon and try again next week.” That was the scariest sermon ever. You made sure you invited the meanest kids you knew.

The only thing longer than the sermon at revivals were the invitations. After the wheat and tare sermon, the walls would be lined with people getting saved. One of my friends would get saved every night of the revival. “Dude, you got saved last night!” “I know, but I just felt like I had to nail it down.”

I have fond memories of revivals though. I would get to see the hottest girl in our youth group every night that week as she didn’t go to my school. And in the end, life change did happen for a lot of people and that’s what it’s all about… that and the free pizza.

Things I remember about church when I was a kid…

After every service, and I mean every service, we had an “invitation.” Now, let me give this preface, I am not saying that this was a bad thing. But as a kid, it was long and painful.

The invitation was a time for people to walk down in front of the entire church and whisper to the pastor what was going on in their life. Decisions were made and prayer was given. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well there was a little more to it than that. There was a process. First, the pastor must remember to turn his mic off. I used to get quiet joy when the first few words out of the poor souls mouth on how messed up his/her life was echoed throughout the sanctuary. (Yes, I have confessed this quiet joy.)

Next came the prayer. The pastor would huddle with the person and pray, but behind their back he would hold up some fingers. Depending on how many counselors were needed, he would hold that number up. He would keep them up, and his prayer, until the appropriate number of counselors touched his arm.

I was never asked to be one of the people who were allowed to touch his arm while he prayed. (Probably a good thing) I don’t know what the qualifications were but I saw them many times during my youth group years, especially at revivals.

My favorite part of the entire service was when the “signal” was given. The entire time the invitation was going on the music minister was leading everyone else in song. He would go from verse to verse to verse while the invitation was being given. When no one else was letting go of the pew and coming down, the pastor would turn to the music minister and circle his index finger. That meant wrap it up, last verse. Needless to say, that verse was always sung the loudest by everyone, as I wasn’t the only one who knew that the end was near.

Lastly, we were all let in on the secrets as everyone who came down front and made a decision were presented and we all clapped for them.

I bet I have spent at least 6 months of my life standing in the pew during the invitation trying to guess what was wrong with each person that came down the isle. I became jealous of senior citizens who got to sit down in the longer invitations and would quietly groan when someone would wait until after the “signal” was given before coming down (I confessed this as well), as this meant a new signal would have to be given.

Ah, the memories of the invitation.

When the preacher took his watch off and placed it on the pulpit. He would be introducing himself or the topic and he would go to his wrist and start unclamping the classy gold watch. It was always a comforting feeling. “Whew, we’ve got the lunch insurance today! He’s bound to see that watch at some point and be forced to stop!” Then my mind would wonder to what I was going to order at Casa Mexicana that day.

The worst however is when the preacher would forget to take his watch off. You could just sense the uneasiness in the room as everyone settled in for a “long one.” Many times I contemplated raising my hand and gently reminding him that he forgot the part where he places his watch on the wooden pulpit. “Excuse me Brother Jeff, you forgot to take your watch off. I’m sure you are a creature of habit and I didn’t want you to have that nagging feeling of ‘what did I forget to do’, the entire time you are talking.”

Without the visible reminder, you could never really tell when he was exactly going to be done. You know what I mean, when he closes his Bible and starts speaking a little slower. Especially the last few words: “That’s what you need to… do… today. Turn to Galations for point #3.”

So close…but yet, so far away.

I don’t remember if they had a clock on the back wall or not, but hopefully at some point someone suggested it. If it were up to me, I would have snagged my moms eggbeater timer, that ironically I never once saw her used to time herself beating eggs, only to time how long I had to keep the soap in my mouth or my time in the corner. Anyway, there would be no chance of the preacher going over once that “DING!” went off. Everyone would know that his time was up and he would be forced to say, “let’s pray.”

As a kid, those are the things you remember about church. Next time – What I remember about the invitation.

Did your pastor use his watch as a guide?