Is an Additional Worship Service
in Your Future?
by Ronald W. Waters
Joanne first attended church in March. Two months later her mother died unexpectedly. She
found comfort and support from her new church family.
Jerry and Sue began attending church in March. Four weeks later their teenage daughter was
hospitalized across the country in a spring break automobile accident that claimed the life of the
driver, her best friend. Jerry and Sue received care from their new pastor.
Julie, a single mom, began attending the church last fall when invited by her neighbor and
several friends from the congregation. Recently she dedicated herself and her children to God.
Her retired father has now become a regular attender and a self-described seeker.
Though the names have been changed, each of these persons began attending Park Street
Brethren Church in Ashland, Ohio, because the congregation added a new worship service this
past March. In fact, persons from 40 new families attended the first Sunday of the new service
and several have become actively involved in the church.1
"Are new services really needed?"
"Approximately half of the 355,000 Protestant churches in the U.S. and Canada should consider
adding a new style worship service to their weekly schedule of activities, regardless of the
number of services they presently have," says Charles Arn (Arn, p.
73). Arn's comments come
as a result of a five year study conducted by Church Growth, Inc., Monrovia, Calif. The study
examined hundreds of churches that added a new service with the result that most were able to
reach new, unchurched people for Christ and their churches.
Arn acknowledges that starting new churches is the most effective way to reach new people. "But
it is not as commonly known that the widespread creation of new style services among existing
churches [is] the second most important strategy" for reaching new people (p. 93).
There are many reasons a church might consider starting an additional worship service. One is
overcrowding. That was the situation at Yorks Corners Mennonite Church in the spring of 1996.
According to Pastor Gene Miller, this rural congregation in southern New York has a small
worship center. Steady growth over a five year period brought the worship service to near
capacity. "We formed a long range planning committee to study the issue. They suggested that
we go to two worship services before we would build," he said. About nine months later, they
had reached capacity and started a second, nearly identical service at 8:30 a.m.
A second reason to start a new service is to offer people
options. Arn says that 27% of all
Americans now work on Sunday (Arn, p. 81). Obviously, a worship service on another day of the
week would offer many people the opportunity to worship who could not otherwise attend. At
Park Street, we have found that our early Sunday services make worship accessible to some who
must work later in the morning.
Another reason is to reach a new population of
people—people of a different socio-economic,
cultural, or ethnic background; people who prefer a different type of music or style of worship; or
those who are otherwise not being reached by churches in the community. This concern led the
Belmont Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, to start a Sunday afternoon worship service five
years ago. "We've had a long-term community ministry," says Pastor Duane Beck. "We did not
have a space problem, at least not for worship." He went on to say that their community ministry
led them to a concern to reach the unreached around them. Their 5:00 p.m. Sunday service is
reaching about 40 people weekly who would probably not be as comfortable in their Sunday
morning service because of socioeconomic and educational differences. Pastor Beck also says,
"The large group on Sunday morning would scare off many of them." He describes the
congregation as a multi-church—essentially two congregations that share the same staff, building,
and budget.
Sometimes this may require having the new service at a different location--one that will not be
intimidating to the people you are trying to reach. At Park Street Pastor Arden Gilmer has talked
about eventually adding a fourth service geared to country-western/gospel music style or a
"hard rock at ten o'clock" Saturday night service.1
We recognize that a setting other than our
present church building may be more inviting to those we hope to win.
A fourth reason is to expand the ministry opportunities for
people. Because we started both a
new worship service and a new, full-range Sunday school at Park Street, we had new
opportunities for musicians, greeters, ushers, teachers, helpers, and audio/video technicians, to
name a few. Many of those now serving were people who were not previously involved in
ministry roles in the church.
The best reason to start a new service, however, is because you desire to
reach new people for
Jesus Christ. Regardless of the size and nature of any community, there are people living near
each of us who have not placed their trust in Jesus Christ as saving Lord. At Park Street, we
started our planning with a clear mission mindset—we believe that many people in our
community still need to come into relationship with Jesus Christ and with the church. Likewise
at Belmont Mennonite, they invited persons who had an interest or a call to reach out to
unchurched people to become part of a planning team for a new service.
"Our church is too small"
Many churches believe they are too small to start a new service. Arn's study found an average
attendance of 40 to generally be the minimum number needed to be able to start another worship
service (Arn, p. 76).
The Bethlehem Brethren Church in Harrisonburg, Va., started a second service when they were
averaging about 40 in worship attendance. Their rationale was to accommodate different worship
style preferences. They were successful in maintaining both services for a time, though
eventually they went back to one service. According to Pastor Pat Velanzon, both groups longed
for fellowship with one another. When they did return to one service, however, worshipers were
open to a more blended style of service that met the desires of both groups.
Jim Moss says it is okay if a new service averages as few as 15-20. However, it is generally
better if the new service rises above 35 as quickly as possible. Otherwise, "It acts like a small
group. Resistance to the arrival of new people is one of the characteristics of small groups"
(Moss, p. 19). He also notes that with fewer than 35 in a service, new people may question its
viability.
At Yorks Corners Mennonite, they had about 85-90 worshipers before starting their second
service. Today they have about 40-45 in their 8:30 service and about 60-65 in the 11:00 service.
"But who will come?"
At Park Street, we found three sources of people for our new worship service. First, we offered a
quarter-long class on the purpose of the church, with a special focus on fulfillment of the Great
Commandment (Matt. 22:37-39) and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20). At the conclusion
of the class, participants were asked to indicate their willingness to attend the new service. Those
who were definitely planning or leaning toward attending and their families totaled 76 persons.
When the new service began, many more active members joined them. So active members who
were open to a missional challenge served as our core group.
A second source of attenders are new, unchurched
persons. We engaged in an intentional
outreach effort. During a four week period using "The Phone's for You!" strategy
(http://www.cgdi.org), we dialed
8,800 homes in our county and talked to over 5,200 people. Half of the people who identified
themselves as not being involved in one of the local churches were willing to receive information
about our new services—980 households. We sent four mailings and made a follow-up phone call
the week before the service. In addition, we placed an ad in the newspaper and advertised the
service on the cable television message board. We also encouraged our people to invite
unchurched friends to join them for worship. As a result, persons from 40 new families attended
the first week and 15 additional new families were represented the second week. Many of these
persons have become active in the church.
A third group that came were some of our own inactive
members. We had made a lot of "noise"
about the new service in our in-house publications as well. Even before we started our new
service, we saw an increase in attendance as the excitement was building. We had no less than
six of our inactive families represented the Sunday we began our new service; there were
probably more that we did not identify. Arn says that some churches can expect as many as
one-third of their inactive members to again become active in the church with inauguration of a
new service (Arn, p. 93).
At Park Street, total worship attendance jumped immediately. Though there has been some
decline from the initial weeks, we have seen overall and continuing growth. For the first four
months of the new services, worship was up 13.6% and Sunday school was up 3.8% over the
same period in 1996. Obviously, we've been less successful in getting new people involved in
Sunday school than in worship, but we are working at ways to include the new folks in one of
our classes.
"It will take too much time and energy!"
There is no question that beginning a new worship service, especially one that is of a different
style from the existing service, will take much time and energy. We spent fifteen months and
countless hours in preparing our congregation and planning for the start of this new, third
worship service at Park Street. That long time frame was due, in part, to the fact that we also
started a new, second Sunday school for all ages at the same time. But it was also because we
recognized early on that we were not ready to move forward.
At Yorks Corners Mennonite, they spent about a year and a half preparing their congregation. As
a result, there was not serious opposition to a second service. "Take your time in working
through the decision and in how you present it," suggests Yorks Corners' Pastor Miller.
Some churches are able to start a new service with as little as three months' planning. The
Elkhart, Indiana, First Brethren Church was able to begin a new style worship service in that
amount of time. According to Pastor Tim Garner, they had already incorporated a praise team
and choruses into their existing service, so it was simply a matter of transferring some of the
musicians to the new worship time.
Fortunately, there are many resources now available to the church that is interested in expanding
the worship opportunities (see related item).
Churches should recognize that the task will not be easy, however. Take as long as necessary to
win a favorable attitude toward the new service, and be prepared to present a quality service. The
rewards of reaching new people for the church and for Jesus Christ will be well worth the effort.
Sources
Charles Arn, "Multiple Worship Services and Church Growth" (Journal of The American Society
for Church Growth, 7, 1996:73-104). Arn has subsequently published a
book on this subject entitled How to
Start a New Service, available from New
Life Ministries.
James W. Moss, Sr., "Starting a New Worship Service," Leader's Guide (Elgin, Ill.: The Andrew
Center, 1997).
__________________________
1This article was originally published in the
Fall 1997 issue of New Beginnings (pages 2-4) by The Andrew Center,
the predecessor to New Life Ministries. Park
Street Brethren Church subsequently added a fourth worship service in
March 2000 called "The Crossing." The Crossing has been the largest
worship service at Park Street from its first Sunday of existence. In the
fall of 2004, the church spun off a new church but continues to offer all four
worship services.
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