How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. Psalms 133:1-2
After six months as pastor at Trinity, I have come to realize that having two worship services on Sunday are far more a liability than an asset to our life and witness together as a congregation. I have been praying about bringing everyone back together into one service ever since I came here in July. I want to be up front with you and I want you to be clear on my reasons for seeing one service as an answer to prayer.
Reason #1: Two services are NOT our best witness. Our average worship attendance has not grown but has remained flat for some time now. Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor. How would you feel walking into a sanctuary on a Sunday morning that looks more than half empty? Our visitors only see one worship service at a time and a half-empty sanctuary looks like evidence of a declining rather than growing church. If either of our services averaged what both do together, then we would need two services to incorporate new people.
Reason #2: We are losing touch with one another. If we had a church membership of 1500 and an average attendance of 600-700, we would need two services and accept the fact that we would be developing two separate congregational identities sharing the same facility. For a church our size to grow apart into two congregations is not only not healthy, it is downright deadly! I know we have tried to schedule special events when people from both services can fellowship together but it is usually the same people who come to all those events. Am I right?
Reason #3: We are getting ourselves spread too thin. Musically, our worship is suffering and I can’t imagine God is always happy with our praise. We are afraid of our own singing voices. One hundred people spread throughout our large sanctuary inhibits each of us from singing our praises joyfully because we hear ourselves too much and don’t hear others enough. Besides, unless we spread Roberta too thinly, we cannot have a choir regularly—and I know a number of you miss singing in or hearing a choir. We are also having more difficulty recruiting volunteers for running the powerpoint, serving as acolytes, and serving on the Altar Guild to staff two services.
I have already spoken to several of the committees which would be directly involved and affected by any change in our worship schedule and the feedback has been encouraging me that one service would be the answer to prayer. The United Methodist Book of Discipline gives the pastor the responsibility for setting worship times and after much thought and prayer, I am looking at two options. The first option would be to worship at 9:30am, with Sunday School following at 10:30 or 10:45 and ending at 11:30. The second option would be to worship at 10am with Sunday School at 9am. I am leaning toward the first option at this time primarily because I am hoping that with worship preceding Sunday School we may be able to boost our Sunday School program, especially among our adults, because while worship is the most import thing we do on Sunday morning, it is in Sunday School classes where we most often form the deepest fellowship and connections with each other.
There will be no votes taken but I am very interested in your feedback on these two options. The only option not on the table is keeping things the way they are, for the specific reasons I have given. God has us here at Trinity to worship and praise him, to build up his family in our fellowship with one another, and to grow his family in our outreach to our community.
