The Call to Action report lists inspirational topical preaching and a mix of both traditional and contemporary worship services as key factors in church growth and vibrancy.
Rudy Guess
Pastor Rudy Guess identifies these same key factors in the attendance growth of Gardendale-Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church in Gardendale, Alabama.
“The First Key is our Diversity in Worship Styles. Early in the decade, Dr. Bill Easum challenged the church to offer a more Contemporary Worship experience starting somewhere between 9:30 and 10:30. He suggested that the 8:30 Contemporary Service, which the church had begun in 1998, was too early to reach the truly unchurched. This led to a complete change in Sunday morning. Gardendale-Mt. Vernon now offers three Sunday morning worship experiences, each one unique. It also offers two full adult and youth Sunday school hours.”
“The second key is Message Series that address life-faith issues. We learned this from Adam Hamilton at the Church of the Resurrection. Each year we begin with a message series that we hope will address needs within our congregation, as well as the unchurched communit. August is back to school month in our area. We have found this to be another good time to offer a message series that addresses life-faith issues of the unchurched.” Pastor Guess shares the following benefits of developing worship around Message Series:
- Message Series provide week to week continuity and leads people to not want to miss a message in the series.
- Message Series help our worship teams in their planning of worship.
- Message Series are easier to promote in the community than a new message every Sunday.
- Message Series seem to catch the attention of seekers, while providing believers with a way to grow. Themes lend themselves to teaching to which seekers and new Christians readily respond.
- Message Series allow the pastor to more deeply explore a life-faith issue over a period of time.
- Message Series draw interest within the community when they address something that the community is talking about. For example: The DiVinci Code and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Many churches have increased the number and variety of Sunday services, and some have added weekday and evening services also.
Rev. Susan Pate Greenwood reports that almost 5 years ago, Centenary United Methodist church in New Bern, North Carolina began a Contemporary service and more recently added a Wednesday mid-day service. “Although there have been some challenges with scheduling an additional service on Sunday mornings, we have managed to meet those challenges by dedicating musicians to each of the overlapping services, and moving the preacher from service to service. This has allowed us to offer informal worship in the Chapel at 8:30 am, Contemporary Worship in the Sanctuary at 8:50 am, and Traditional Worship in the Sanctuary at 11:00 am. It requires a considerable amount of spiritual maturity on the part of a congregation to adequately support three differing services, and there have been some growing pains, but the congregation does “get it”; growing pains are better than dying pains.
Susan Greenwood
“Our congregation is blessed with a growing number of families with young children and teenagers who have nearby second homes, or whose parents have nearby second homes. Also, a large number of our congregants work in the tourist industry which is an economic mainstay of our community. This means that a significant proportion of our congregants are out of town or working on lots of weekends. We offer a Wednesday communion service from noon to 12:30 pm every week of the year. Child care is available through the Mother’s Morning Out and the Lunch Bunch of our Preschool. Several of the retired UMC ministers who call Centenary home have also preached at this service during Lent or Advent, and they are excellent preachers whom we love to hear! This mid-week service (lectionary based as are our Sunday services) is truly a worship alternative for those who cannot or will not be present on any given Sunday.”
Another North Carolina church, Centenary United Methodist in Winston-Salem, began a “Power Lunch” on Wednesday. A three course meal is followed by a brief act of worship and an address on a Christian theme. The formal meeting lasts 30 minutes. This attracts people who work in the city center, and friends from other churches as well as Centenary members. Although attendance can exceed 180 people, the average is 140-150. This meeting continues to attract some who for a long time have not been involved in any church, according to Pastor Peter Graves.
Gary Main
First United Methodist Church in Kearney, Nebraska created a “Come as You Are” worship service on Wednesday evenings. Pastor Gary Main says, “Our church has always had a strong Wednesday night ministry with children’s and youth ministries, adult studies and musical groups. We now start with a meal provided by a church group, move into an informal half-hour worship service built around media, contemporary messages, and music. We worship around 150 people, many of whom we do not see on Sunday morning. This seems to be a gateway service, as many who start on Wednesday evenings do move to participation on Sundays. This gives us 6 distinct worship services. Our Sunday services are intentionally different, with 8:15 being a blended service with a variety of music; 9:30 consisting of contemporary worship led by our praise team; and 11:00 being a very traditional service, featuring our chancel choir. Our Saturday evening service is very informal and seems to appeal to people who grew up in smaller churches. We also have experimented with a Thursday night service, built around sensory worship, with our target being college age and young adults. I am confident that offering a variety of worship experiences is an important factor in our worship attendance increase, because all of the services have enjoyed increased attendance. We also strive to make our services positive and uplifting. We noticed that few families were worshipping together at our 9:30 contemporary service. Parents were in worship and their children were in Sunday school at the same time. We added a 2nd session of Sunday school at 11:00, with offerings for every age. We have seen the number of children at the 9:30 worship increase significantly without a drop in Sunday school attendance.”
Mary Kutz
Rev. Margaret Kutz, pastor of Chester United Methodist Church in Chester, Virginia explains that a team of people worked through all the steps outlined in the book “How To Start A New Service” by Richard Arn before beginning a new 8:45 am contemporary service in the fall of 2004. “We served a light breakfast before the service which was very attractive to young families. That service grew to nearly 200. Then in the spring of 2008, using Arn’s book again, we started a third service, southern Gospel. It was held Sunday evening at 6:00. That service is extremely informal with tables, popcorn, soft drinks, etc. It now averages 70 in attendance. This service includes adults with cognitive disabilities, mentally ill, de-churched, and a couple of our Sunday morning attendees who simply like southern gospel. The same music director leads music at all three services. Much of what has made these services successful is this congregation, their leaders and their prayers.
Our most recent effort in moving toward excellence has required me to write the outline of sermons six months out so we will have adequate time to plan for series visuals, drama, small groups, etc. The worship planning team has expanded to include people focused on the visual arts, drama, connecting scripture to culture, and dance as well as music and preaching.”
It is our hope that sharing the insights of pastors of “Vibrant Churches” will be helpful to other pastors and congregations throughout The United Methodist Church. It is exciting and inspiring to receive and share the very positive reports of pastors and congregations filled with such spirit and commitment to reaching out into their communities to help others experience God’s transforming love through Jesus Christ.
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