Local Church Visitor and Assimilation Ministry
Prior to ascending back to heaven, Christ commanded his church to take up the mission of making disciples (Matt. 28:18-20). Consequently, churches have the responsibility and privilege to obey this command through preaching the gospel, both in the public/corporate gathering and in various smaller settings. Our goal is to be faithful to the word of God with the hope and prayer that individuals would be saved and learn to make disciples themselves.
Visitor and assimilation ministries in the local church can be one helpful means of making disciples. Often times these ministries serve as a bridge to move people from a visitor to plugging into the local church so as to come to faith in Christ and get the shepherding God desires.
As a younger church, planted about seven years ago, we are often thinking through various ways to do visitor and assimilation ministry. Several months ago, as we made some adjustments, we also did a statistical study to observe what was happening in this disciple-making process.