Invitation is a skill, and it’s less about persuasion (how can I convince you to join me?) than it is about courage (am I actually trying this?). Whether it’s an ambitious project or a coffee, someone has to make an invitation. Nothing happens until then.
Beyond practicality, though, skilled invitations grow good will. People like to be invited. It feels good when someone asks you to join them; it means they think you have something to contribute, or could. They think you’re interesting. A community that knows how to invite is filled with people who have been invited. There are bonds.
We often hold back an invitation for fear it will be received as an imposition or a demand, an obligation. That fear is almost always made up. People like to be invited, and if the thing you’re inviting them to isn’t for them, they can say no. That’s the other mark of a community that knows how to invite: people are free to decline if the invitation doesn’t speak to them or doesn’t work for them. It’s opt in. That means you can’t get your feelings hurt when your invitation is turned down.
The invitation can’t be about you. It has to be about the thing you care about and suspect others also care about.
Matt and I care about the Bible. We invite you to listen to the latest two episodes of our podcast about it.
YoRocko! 