The fourth law of the seven laws of seven, is the law of seven friends. The law of seven friends makes a stranger a “stayer,” or it turns a visitor into a member. One of the secrets to keeping visitors is to give them genuine friends. If you look around at old established churches you will notice that the main ingredient that keeps them coming back is not so much their “love of the Lord” or their love of the church as it is their love for the people. What this means is these people keep coming to the church mostly because of the relationships they have in that church.

Sometimes the relationship people have in the church is with relatives, but most times they are friends. These ties with a church become more important as the years go by. When a person arrives at the “senior citizen” status, he is very de-pendent on these relationships. This partially explains why, when a church be-gins to die, the older generation will normally be the last to abandon that facility. The result is that in dying churches you will see more “silver heads” than any other age group and conversely, in growing churches you have more babies and toddlers.

Before we go further into this fourth law, let us know that it is placed after the third law deliberately. The third law deals with assimilation, which helps us know how to keep the people we win and the fourth law helps us reach the peo-ple God has called us to win. Why do we make plans for assimilation first? Why not learn how to win them first?” The answer is more complex than it might seem. Teaching your church how to assimilate the visitor organizes the church to begin to grow automatically. It will help your laity become excited about the harvest so that they invite their own relatives and friends. However, the main reason for train-ing the church in assimilation is to make sure you have the mechanisms in place to keep those you reach. When we get to law six we will discover another rea-son.

Law four says that the church needs to encourage laity to make friends with the potential church attendees. This does not happen automatically or accidentally, but should be orchestrated by the church. The pastor will have to train key lay persons how to do this. One successful way of helping the small church grow is for the pastor to make a friend with an outsider and invite him to his church as his friend. After a few weeks he will then ask a key lay person to adopt this out-sider as his (the lay person’s) friend and the pastor will then go and find some-one else. Often, in the small church, acceptance only occurs when visitors be-come friends of the pastor. This is because the small church is almost always a very closed group that is difficult for the stranger to enter unless he is the friend of the pastor.

Law four says that two friends are not sufficient. A visitor needs to make seven friends in seven weeks before he begins to feel accepted and a part of the church. Ac-complishing this is easy if the pastor and three other families team together. Of course, the larger the church is, more families are needed. Do not forget to use families as you win them through this program to participate since they will be the most excited about helping.

Every pastor asks the question, “How do I get the visitor in the first place?” The fourth law not only ties a visitor to the church with seven friends, it forces the church to go out and find the sinner that needs to be “tied in.” Having the pastor win and bring a friend is one example, but there are many forms of outreach. There are also many forms of evangelism used in outreach. “Confrontational evangelism” is confronting people giving them an immediate choice through an altar call or a one-on-one evangelistic question either in a tract or soul winning presentation. “Lifestyle evangelism,” suggests that Christians ought to live a life-style that shows they are Christians. “Friendship evangelism,” encourages the Christian to make friends with the sinners so as win them to the Lord. All these methods have their place, their strengths and weaknesses.

Evangelism normally means sharing the Gospel and allowing a person to re-spond to its convicting message. Witnessing means sharing what we have seen, heard and experienced through what God has done in our lives. Witnessing and evangelism are different. The point that most pastors and churches miss is the commandment for all Christians to witness not just evangelize. Evangelism is a special gift that some people receive and therefore can effectively accomplish. Witnessing, on the other hand, is a commandment for all of us. We can witness if we have any experience at all with the Lord. Witnessing is God’s plan to win this world and it is far more effective than evangelism. Witnessing will eventu-ally lead to evangelism in the heart of the one who is searching, and it will not be a “turn off” to those not yet interested. How can it be a “turn off” if all you are sharing is what God has done for you? Pastors need to teach Christians how to witness first, before they train them in evangelism, but emphasize and teach both.

The church needs to spend ten percent of its budget on making the church known in the community, half of that on advertising the church and its programs. The exception to this is the marketing of the church when the location of the church is not on one of the main city roads. Callahan in his book, Twelve Keys To An Effective Church, says that churches in an obscure location need to spend as much money advertising their location as they spend paying the pastor’s salary.

What a church advertises depends on the church’s vision and, as we noted in the first law of seven, whom they are targeting. This is the reason a good demo-graphic study of the community and the church helps the church know whom it should be reaching. If the demographic study shows the strength of both the church and the community is young people, then an advertising program on clas-sic stationery for older people will not help reach that young audience. A flyer geared to young people and carried by youth into that community may be more effective and cheaper than any other form of advertising.

If the emphasis of the church is really evangelism, then surely the first person a church should hire after a pastor is a person with the gift of evangelism. This is hardly ever the case. Secretaries, administrators, and pastoral care persons, to name a few, always seem to take priority when the church hires staff. Pastors who are not gifted evangelists should seriously think about hiring someone gifted in evangelism. If the pastor is not evangelistically gifted, a youth pastor with the gift of evangelism may be the best person to hire next. Pastors who do not have the gift of evangelism should not feel guilty or try to be what they are not. But seeing that evangelism is carried out or the hiring of the people who have this gift is the pastor's responsibility. If the pastor cannot afford to hire someone, even part-time, or if he cannot find a volunteer, he needs to heed the words of Paul to Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist,” regardless of how uncomfort-able it may be.

The church must also come up with evangelistic programs to reach its target au-dience. Churches that are evangelistic in all that they do are far more effective at growing in every area. Study after study shows that evangelistic churches grow. These same studies note the churches or ministries that put more of their energy into social programs than evangelism will eventually die. We are not suggesting that social programs be ignored by the church, but that evangelism takes first priority. A church should have evangelism woven into every Sunday School class, every Bible study, every sermon. Give opportunity for people to respond. Even the renowned Dr. Cho gives an altar call at every service, and this is in the largest church in the world. Some large churches in America feel it is “not done,” or inappropriate to give altar calls. They could learn something from Dr. Cho. Churches, Sunday Schools, mission stations, and all Christian related min-istries normally grow if evangelism is happening. It is the most important thrust of the church.

Law four says that if visitors gain seven friends in seven weeks, they are more likely to become a part of your church. This law also emphasizes the importance of teaching the church to go out and make friends with sinners so that they can witness to them and invite them to the church. It encourages Christians to be witnesses, and it pleads with the church to be evangelistic in all it does.