Our church cabinet’s August meeting was hot in more ways than one. I’d read that the question of adding a second worship service is one of the most hotly debated issues in growing churches. Now I was finding out firsthand.
At our leaders’ retreat, we’d discussed the issue in general terms. I thought a second service was a good idea; my wife did not. The chair of the board of education said yes; the Sunday school superintendent said no.
Now the cabinet was sharply divided, and that group represented all areas of the church-from young people to seniors, the women’s guild to the Sunday school.
The church moderator objected, “A second service might cause chaos in the parking lot as the second group arrives before the first group leaves.” This was no idle concern; our lot was small. We were already dependent on an adjacent bank that allowed us to use its lot.
“What about the coffee fellowship?” someone else asked. Following worship we host a fellowship time so people can visit with old friends and make new ones. “Would we have one coffee hour or two? If only one, when? If we hosted two, would we have enough volunteers to handle both?”
“What makes our church so unique is a family atmosphere, where everyone knows everyone else,” said the president of our women’s group. “With a second service, we’ll become two separate clumps, strangers to each other.” Many heads nodded.
It looked as if the objectors were winning. But then another perspective appeared.
“With our growth taking place primarily among younger families,” the chair of the evangelism committee pointed out, “our congregation has already grown more heterogeneous. Perhaps the idea of a small, intimate family is already outmoded. Maybe we need a second service not only to handle our space problems but to offer an alternative style of worship.”
That gave everyone pause. The more we debated the issue, the more complex it grew.
Four questions
Lyle Schafer notes four critical questions for congregations considering a second service:
What is our main objective for the service?
Whom are we trying to reach?
What trade-offs must be faced?
What specific questions will have to be addressed in making a choice?
We had already decided our objective for Sunday worship (spiritual renewal, sharing, support) and the people we were trying to reach (people within our village who would be most likely to respond to our theological niche). The trickier questions for us were about logistics and trade-offs: growth vs. family spirit, chaos vs. order, change vs. familiarity.
We could not grow and yet be a small, family church. We could not alter patterns without some confusion. We could not change without venturing into unfamiliar territory. But then, isn’t that what the journey with Christ is all about?
With considerable trepidation, the cabinet endorsed the idea in a retractable way, by choosing to experiment with two services for a limited period.
That meant other questions: When to hold this second service? The same time as Sunday school? If so, would that discourage attendance in the growing, adult Sunday school class? On the other hand, this might encourage parents to stay who normally dropped off the kids for Sunday school.
We decided to try the new, informal service at 9:00, the same time as Sunday school. The second, traditional service would follow at 10:30, its present time. We would try two coffee hours.
The new service would begin in October and run for a nine-month trial. The congregation would have the opportunity to evaluate the experiment in the spring. By summer a decision would be made whether to extend the program.
We were off and stumbling.
Trial period trials
The first Sunday went so well, I thought for sure we had a winner. In the early service, the sanctuary was filled with both older and younger people. We had imported for that week a Christian folk singer to help us learn a new way of congregational singing.
In subsequent weeks, reality abruptly caught up with us. Attendance at the first service plummeted. After the children and teachers left for their classes, only a few individuals dotted the pews. The music was terrible. Ever try to sing folk songs to a classical church organ, without a lead singer?
The people in the later service were disgruntled. They missed the children’s participation. What had seemed to be one happy family of a hundred was gone, replaced by two distinct groups, neither of which was large enough to fill even half the sanctuary. Even I felt the experiment had been a terrible mistake. I woke up nights thinking about the whole mess.
The deacons and the cabinet were less than enthused. At our meetings some said, “This is never going to fly; I told you so. We made a mistake. We should admit it and get back on our regular schedule before Christmas turns into a disaster.”
I admitted those were my sentiments, too, but I reminded them we had agreed to stick to the experiment through the spring, and then evaluate. We decided to let it run its course.
Our ad hoc committee for planning the new service argued a good deal at its weekly meetings. We were having trouble combining informality with meaningful spirituality. Our music director wanted to make the new service as much like the old one as possible. Our high schoolers wanted the service as different as possible. Some even wanted to dispense with my sermon. (I drew the line on that, explaining that since we were still one church, we should at least hear the same Scripture and message.)
Gradually the new service began to assume a pattern. We experimented with different approaches, and those that worked, we kept. Over time, a deeper spiritual presence settled over the congregation. By the new year, attendance began increasing as new, younger families found their way in, and the early service gathered momentum.
The same could not be said for 10:30. That congregation was shrinking. By Lent, we had only a small group of elderly worshipers gathering without much enthusiasm. Several let me know in no uncertain terms that they were unhappy. After Easter, however, attendance began increasing, ever so slowly.
Notes on the vote
After the trial period, we gave a questionnaire to each member, asking for an evaluation of each service and a recommendation whether to make the change permanent.
The results: 57 percent wished to continue, 11 percent was opposed, and 32 percent was in limbo. The survey also showed that while the older group wanted the children to be in their worship service, they did not want to make the changes that would attract them. Based on the results of the survey, the cabinet decided to make the experiment permanent. And we realized we had learned some important lessons from this experience.
Give everyone a voice. People are much more willing to accommodate change, even against their wishes, if they sense their needs have been taken seriously. Presenting a second service as “an experiment for a trial period” and announcing the opportunity to evaluate it are helpful. Some folks simply need an opportunity to ventilate frustrations, disappointments, or personal agendas before they board the band wagon.
Stay the course. Give the innovation time to stabilize. This time also provides people who normally are resistant to change time to talk themselves into it. Of course, one should never initiate a change determined never to deviate, but too often leaders give in prematurely in order to save the peace, something that in the long run causes only more conflict. In retrospect, we were glad we’d had the courage to keep the experiment long enough to make a meaningful evaluation.
Bring people together in other ways. When a congregation is divided into two worshiping groups, it’s imperative to unite in other ways. After a short experiment with two coffee hours, we chose to host just one, between the two services. We continued holding monthly suppers, with activities that mixed older and younger folks. On special occasions we hold worship services that bring everyone together in a festive, if overcrowded, sanctuary. Our annual Country Fair and special camping trips also bring people together.
For us, a second service has brought both numerical and spiritual growth. Before the experiment, attendance ranged between eighty-five and one hundred. Now each service involves about sixty, so total attendance has climbed 20 percent. The parking situation has worked out better than we expected, since some people attend the first service but don’t stay for coffee hour. And first-service people have willingly used the bank lot to save our few, closer spaces for visitors and older folks. The adult Sunday school class has not declined but grown, as have the children’s classes. It’s exciting to see a couple of families, who used to drop their kids at Sunday school and keep going, now stay and worship. They’ve told me they sensed something spiritually alive here, and as they kept coming, they grew.
We’ve learned it’s possible to add a second service and continue to experience togetherness. But only after some second thoughts.
-Gilford Bisjak, Jr.
Alpine (California) Community Church
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