Word of the Week: Service Time
Hi Church! Our Malawi team is all back safe and sound! I’m using my word of the week to talk about fall worship service times.
Here is the decision: Worship will continue at 9:30 AM indefinitely, and Foundations will be from 11:00 to 11:45 starting August 26th.
Here is the why: The feedback from you was solidly in favor of the 9:30 service, though there were those who preferred the later time. It was clear enough to the elders that it wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
Of the 77 who responded, for the 9:30 service:
39 said it was better or much better
16 said it was neither better or worse
9 said it was somewhat worse or much worse
For a 10:30 service time:
26 said it was better or much better:
14 said it was neither better or worse
13 said it was worse or much worse.
Hopefully that all makes sense and is clear. It is an interesting number is that 31 of 77 had a strong preference for the 9:30.
This is one of these situations where your leaders can’t possibly decide something that everyone is excited about. So, after we spent a few minutes in prayer Tuesday night, and reviewed the results, we made a decision that seems best for the most people. I’m excited about his new chapter in our life together. I pray we can all come together in joy and unity as we move forward.
Your feedback
Of the 77 of you who responded to the survey, 31 of you took time to leave us some comments. Last night at our meeting we talked over some of them and considered how to improve what we do as a church. Thanks to all of you who took the time to let us know you are thinking. Only this morning did I read every single one of them, and put them into some general categories. First, many of you took the time to express support for the concept of going back to one service, and said some kind and affirming things. A few expressed a desire to have communion more frequently than we do. Many wrote out your reasons for preferring one service time over another. Some of you had ideas for how we can improve what we do on Sunday morning.
Several of you asked if we know what the preferences of unchurched people in our area are for service times. We have seen the results of a national survey of worship preference times that point toward earlier starts for a primary worship service. Here is my assumption: Our church reflects our community demographically, so our preferences are likely to be similar to those around us. In today’s world, it takes some time for an unchurched person to try a church. A friend may have to encourage them for a while before they try. But thanks for that great question, those of you who asked it. We hope that when unchurched people decide to try out Grace, they find the 9:30 time beneficial, and find us very welcoming as a church.
Thank your so much for this input. Your staff and leaders will consider your thoughts and ideas as we move forward this fall with our one service at 9:30. Pray for us that our worship will be refreshing, and Christ centered, and our preaching accompanied by both faithfulness to God’s word, and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit!
In Him,
Don