Look around at your neighbors, co-workers, family, friends, acquaintances, or others you encounter who don't go to church—these next two weeks provide a great opportunity to reach out to them.

• More than four out of ten Americans (41%) are likely to be receptive to an invitation during the Christmas season.

The Center for Missional Research commissioned Zogby International to ask people about their receptivity to  an invitation to church over the Holidays.

• The study also showed that 42% of the people surveyed would be very or somewhat likely to attend church more frequently in 2007 as a result of their New Year's resolutions.

All of this indicates that the Christmas and New Year's holiday season is a time of openness for many people.

• People in the South are most likely (48%) to accept an invitation to a Christian worship service around Christmas. This region also has more (54%) who are likely to make a resolution to attend church more frequently in 2007.
• The good news is that regardless of where you live, each region of the country showed more than 30 percent who are willing to come if invited. Now we just have to invite them.

Looking further at data provided in the study, the question naturally arises, "Are those who are most receptive the ones who have some religious connections or background?" What does this say about those who are truly non-Christian?

• Although we have not graphed them out, nearly 34 percent of respondents who registered "Other/None" for their religion indicated that they'd respond affirmatively when invited to a Christian worship service during the Christmas season.
• And a whopping 42 percent of those who said they were not born again would come to a Christian worship service during the Christmas season if asked.
• Of the respondents who were not church goers, 12 percent of those who never go to church and 34 percent of those who rarely attend indicated they were more likely to attend a Christmas service if invited.
  
  

What does this mean for you? Simply, that opportunity is knocking… loudly. Seize the opportunity while people are open and while attention is on the birth of Christ. Don't let this season pass while people in your area are considering their New Year's resolutions. No matter where you serve, what the age group is around you, or whether people consider themselves to be religious or not, there are some—quite a few, really—who will come to church if you'll invite them.

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Ed Stetzer is Missiologist and Senior Director of NAMB's Center for Missional Research.
For more information on this and other studies and to subcribe to the CMR Insights Newsletter, go to www.namb.net/cmr.  © 2006 Center for Missional Research, All Rights Reserved.