The statistics are clear: new services equal new growth. If you begin a new worship service, chances are approximately 80 percent that within the next year your total attendance, total giving, and total number of visitors will increase.
Plenty of hazards, however, lurk along the way. Knowing the location of these traps could well spell the difference between success and failure.
Explosives to sidestep
My organization, Church Growth, Inc., recently conducted a five-year study analyzing churches that added a new worship service. Here are the traps we found pastors needed to avoid.
Danger #1: The pastor leaves. If a pastor actively supports the addition of a new service, and the right strategy is followed, that’s when the chances of success are approximately 80 percent. But if the pastor leaves in the midst of the process, the success rate drops to under 5 percent.
Danger #2: The pastor is not fully behind the new service. The pastor of a Lutheran church in Ohio was not convinced that the benefit of a new service was worth the risk. He not only did not support the idea, he skipped the planning meetings and advised that the new service be held in the basement. Needless to say, the service did not succeed.
What are the reasons a pastor may not support adding a service?
Fear is paramount, according to a Church of the Nazarene study. Fears of lack of cooperation from people, fears of physical demands, fears of small crowds and loss of community all play a part in a pastor’s reluctance to pursue new services. And pastors aren’t the only ones with fears; the same Nazarene survey found that lay leadership shared some of the same apprehensions.
Pastors who promote a new service risk both failure and success. If the new service is a bust, the pastor may well face uphill battles in generating support for other ideas in the future. If the new service is successful, the pastor’s risk comes from the reactions of those who had sanctified the status quo.
Introducing and championing a new service is one of the best ways to increase your “leadership stock.” But it is no small risk.
Danger #3: The pastor doesn’t effectively “sell” the idea to the congregation. Pastors often lament the lack of vision in their leaders or members as the reason the church does not offer multiple worship options. My experience, however, is that the problem is not in the people’s lack of vision as often as in the pastor’s inadequate selling of the vision.
Five persuasion points
One of the necessary steps to successfully move a church toward a new service is, as Carl George puts it, “effective leadership that can do the political maneuvering necessary to rally the church in support of such new outreach.”
Here are five guidelines for selling the idea of a new service.
1. Present the new service as a strategy to reach an agreed-upon goal. If there has been previous thought, discussion, and prayer put into a mission statement, and if the congregation has adopted this statement of purpose, then subsequent change is more likely to be supported if it is presented as a means toward that previously agreed-upon goal.
2. Introduce the new service as an addition, not a replacement. The pastor of one Baptist church in Denver, Colorado, that launched a successful Saturday night service, recalls, “It would have been very difficult for us to change any of the traditional services on Sunday morning. Instead, we simply rented a junior-high auditorium and started another service.”
You have much more freedom to initiate a new service if those who attend your present service—and enjoy it—are not asked to sacrifice “their service” on the altar of change.
3. Introduce the new service as a short-term experiment, not a long-term commitment. Most of us are more tolerant of change if it is seen as a temporary condition. Then often we discover that the change is not as distasteful as we had feared and, in fact, is more desirable than the past. Once members begin to accommodate the idea of their church offering an additional service, they will be more likely to continue the service at the end of the experiment.
4. Create ownership. If a member feels like the goal of a new service is something in which he or she has a stake, that person will be more likely to support the idea and work for its success. Ask others for ideas on how the new service can be most effective. In all likelihood the ideas will enhance the new service, as well as broaden goal ownership.
5. Convince the leaders. Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recalls his first formal step in exploring a new service: “I decided to discuss my concerns with the board. I talked about the old Youth for Christ (YFC) rallies in the Grand Rapids area. Many of the board members had attended the rallies and had seen God work in miraculous ways. I suggested the idea of a ‘YFC rally for the ’90s.’ I was given permission to explore the idea and report back to the board.” With the support of your lay leaders, you have an alliance that will lead to church-wide adoption. Without their support you are wise to move on to other issues.
Design challenges for the service
Our research shows that faulty worship design is responsible for more service failures than any other factor. Here are the most common problems.
Most of us are more tolerant of change if it is seen as a temporary condition.
A mismatched service style and target audience
A new service should be planned to reach those beyond your current worshiping community, a new and carefully-defined “target audience.” Worship leaders can make a fatal mistake by creating a service that is inappropriate for that audience.
Designers of successful services define their target audience on the basis of three criteria: generational group, spiritual condition, and cultural identity. The first two criteria are easily understood. The third is a little more challenging.
Insensitivity to the culture of the target audience is a common cause for new service failures. Culture encompasses a person’s socio-economic level, musical tastes, religious background, marital status, occupation, or other aspects of his or her lifestyle. Individuals will tend to resist outreach efforts that come out of cultures other than their own.
The wrong time or place
Time is more critical than place, and the best time for a new service is usually Sunday morning. Even the most hard-core atheist knows that Sunday is when people go to church. The exception would be a service that is so radically different from your present service that it would be offensive to many members who come in contact with it on Sunday morning. This is one reason why some seeker-targeted services do better on Saturday night.
Poor quality presentation
A high-quality service does not guarantee growth, but a low-quality service does guarantee non-growth.
“Quality” encompasses the music, preaching, pace, personnel, and facilities. Preparation is key to achieving this quality: the more you rehearse a service, the more spontaneous it appears. The converse is also true: the less you prepare, the less natural the service appears.
The existing membership is divided rather than added to
Most churches that add an additional service find that 10 to 20 percent of their present attendees move to the new service (with the balance of the attenders being previously unchurched or inactive). But if the new service has not been effectively promoted outside the church, some pastors find they are simply preaching to the same people spread out among one more service.
The service did not reach its critical mass
Nearly all new services experience a decline in attendance during the first six months. The critical mass is the number of people necessary for a new service to survive and grow beyond that point.
Ideally attendance at a new service begins above its critical mass and does not descend below it during the first six months. Often attendance at the new service starts below, and never reaches, its critical mass. It is also possible, of course, that a new service could start above and descend below, or start below and ascend above, its critical mass.
Our studies show that there are certain levels a new service should attain to be assured of reaching critical mass. These numbers reflect average attendance during the first six weeks. If you attain them within this time, you will be at or above the critical mass necessary to weather a 20-25 percent decline in the first few months, and still have an adequate nucleus for eventual growth.
Attendance goal #1: At least 50 people or 35 percent of your largest present service (whichever is greater) should be in attendance. To put it simply, most new services that begin with less than 50 don’t survive the first year; most new services that begin with more than 50 do.
Attendance goal #2: At least 35 percent of those in attendance should be previously unchurched or inactive. In most cases this will be easy. If your new service is focused on a new target audience, and you have an adequate promotion strategy, 65 percent or more of your new attenders will be previously unchurched or inactive.
Attendance goal #3: The worship space should be filled to at least 50 percent capacity. It is far better to bring in more chairs and squeeze into a small space than to have lots of empty seats and get lost in a big space. This is one reason it may be better to meet in a facility other than your sanctuary.
A clear and present opportunity
Many church leaders read about the success stories or attend the seminars of churches that seem to have figured out what works and what doesn’t. It seems so easy for them—and so difficult for the rest of us.
I won’t be so presumptuous as to suggest that a new service in your church is the simple solution to all your problems.
But I can tell you, with utmost certainty, that there is opportunity in your church for new growth and outreach. As long as there are unreached people in your community, there is an opportunity for God’s love to be shared with them.
For many of these people, it may well be experienced through a new service.
Charles Arn is president of Church Growth, Inc., based in Monrovia, California
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
