Come and See:

This week I was sat in a marketing and sales strategy call. In it, the head of Sales was singing the praises of referral marketing. It's the kind of marketing where your existing customers or clients promote you to people they know. He highlighted how this was lower cost and had higher conversion rates. Basically, you're more likely to buy if someone else recommends it.

I suspect you know this to be true. Think about the last new product you bought. There's a good chance that even if you didn't hear about it from a friend, you asked a friend for their thoughts.

As I was listening, it reminded me of when Jesus met Nathaniel.

When Nathaniel met Jesus

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” ⁴⁶ Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” ⁴⁷ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸ Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” ⁴⁹ Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰ Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹ And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” [The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Jn 1:43–51.]

Nathaniel didn't see an advert or hear a stranger in the street giving a clear and persuasive argument. No, he had a simple invitation from his friend. And even though he was sceptical, he agreed to go along.

The same is true today.

As great as social media, flyers, and other resources are (and they do have a place and do sometimes work), an invitation from a person is more effective.

All we have to do is invite someone to come and see Jesus.

What does that mean for us today?

It's easy to retreat to lobbing social media posts to our feed or worrying if we know all the arguments for God (plus the counter arguments against the arguments against God and Christianity), but often times we don't need that. We just need to invite someone.

Here's how it might look.

• Invite someone to church
• Invite someone to a homegroup
• Invite someone to read the Bible
• Invite a young parent along to the toddler group
• Sharing your testimony of how you came to faith
• Sharing a small thing God has done in your life this week

And when someone reacts, we invite them to come and see more.

Again, if you like apologetics that's great! Just don't use the fear of not knowing enough as an excuse to not share or invite.

I do have to share a word of warning about this approach though.

Not everyone will accept

Although Nathaniel accepted the invite and came to believe, not everyone we invite will. There are plenty of examples of people encountering Jesus and rejecting him.

• The Pharisees
• Many Israelites
• His own family and hometown

Jesus tells us how to respond. We "shake the dust of our sandals" (literally remove any trace of a pagan place) and go on to the next.

For us today, that means we say "okay" and wait for the next opportunity to invite someone. It can be tricky to not get disheartened and stop trying if we've been rejected a lot, but it's worth it for the one sheep out of the 99.

Not a burden, an opportunity

I know that reading something like this can feel guilt inducing. It can make us feel like we aren't doing enough, or that we've been silly for trying too hard to convert people.

I hope that's not how you feel, but if it is, I'm sorry that you've felt this way and let me know if part of my writing induced that feeling.

Instead, I hope this helps you reduce the burden you feel and instead frees you to take a risk and invite someone.

Just like Philip, we simply need to point to Jesus and say "Come and see".

Jesus will do the rest.