Tags: Contemporary Worship, Iowa, Large, Music, Pantry, Skateboard, Youth
Recipe for Growth: Mixing Stained Glass and Skate Boards
From 1994 to 2009, worship attendance at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Davenport, Iowa doubled. This downtown church, founded in 1836, exploded in growth in the 1940s to late 50s, but began a slow and continuing decline in the mid 1960s. Gradual growth returned in the mid 90s, but substantial worship growth happened between 2002 and 2008. Our surprising God has moved among us in ways we never could have foreseen.
God gives the growth, we try to go where he is leading.
What “human” factors co-operated with God’s moving in reversing the decline and beginning a new era of renewal? (1) Expanding worship options, (2) Radical risk-taking, (3) Reclaiming mission emphasis, (4) Improving facility infrastructure.
Amping up Worship Options…
Read More
Tags: Informal, Leadership, Medium, Music, Small Group, Traditional Worship, Virginia
Recently I was asked to share some of the elements that went into our 65% increase in worship attendance over a five year period. When I came to Chester UMC in 2003, there was one worship service: traditional, 11:00 am Sunday. The congregation had expressed interest in a contemporary service and they had allowed the youth to have a try at it a couple of times but it just never got off the ground. We did nothing with a contemporary service the first year I was here; rather we worked on making the traditional service as excellent as we possibly could. (Excellent worship is not a defined entity but is the best a congregation can do at that point.) The attendance at that service grew about 10%.
With the resignation of the Music Director we had an opportunity to hire somebody who could do both traditional and contemporary music, a rare breed. But we found that in Joshua Wortham, a recent college graduate with training and experience in both classical and contemporary Christian music. With him on board we could move forward. A team of people worked our way through all the steps outlined in the book “How To Start A New Service” by Richard Arn.
Read More
Tags: Communication, Contemporary Worship, Leadership, Medium, Music, North Carolina
1) Starting a new kind of worship service. Almost 5 years ago, Centenary began a Contemporary 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. We owe the initiation of this service to the previous pastors, who kept on keeping on, despite considerable resistance, and who made the service a reality. My contribution has been to establish the pattern of one preacher preaching all three services. It has been necessary in the last couple of years for us to hire musical personnel who are up to the challenge of providing such different musical genres, and we have been blessed to be able to do so.
Read More
Tags: Alabama, Children, Contemporary Worship, Direct Mail, Evangelism, Large, Traditional Worship
During the first decade of this century, Gardendale-Mt. Vernon grew from 430 in two Sunday morning worship services to over 750 in three morning worship services. This growth has taken place while I, (Rudy Guess) have been the pastor. I was asked to share about three or four of the keys to this growth.
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 Sunday morning schedule now looks like this:
Read More
Tags: Community, Leadership, Medium, North Carolina, Small Group
“Staff-led, lay-driven congregation”
As one of the pastors of Oak Ridge United Methodist Church I am extremely grateful for the “good fit” that this appointment seems to be as concerns congregation-clergy relationship! Gifts and graces; style of ministry; theology type; and personalities of church and pastor appear to be a positive chemistry. When we arrived at Oak Ridge UMC there was a noticeable hunger for love and leadership. We felt the very same need and a mutual care and nurture reciprocity was under way. God’s goodness and grace is experienced in and through this church family.
One of the very first actions we took upon arriving during the first portion of the first year of ministry (Fall 2006) was to set up cluster (cottage) meetings at various homes throughout the parish. At these cluster meetings it provided a wonderful time for fellowship and dialog. As a new pastor, I simply did a lot of listening. In fact, I asked at each cluster meeting for the folks in attendance to address three specific questions: What are your celebrations concerning ORUMC? What are your concerns? And, what are your dreams?
Read More
Tags: Alabama, Children, Large, Leadership Development, Missions, Music, Small Group, Student, Technology, Traditional Worship
A thriving congregation!
Covenant has seen significant growth over the last 13 years and more specifically the last 6 years. Engaging change to reach people of all ages for Christ has been critical. Over the past 13 years as senior pastor our church has grown in a number of ways. It has been a remarkable experience!
The past six years we have seen significant increase in reaching people for Christ and His kingdom. We are seeing 25-40 year olds visit and connect with our church. Our average age is 35 to early 40’s!
We have two strong significant age groupings: 25-45 and over 50. These are large segments in our church. So we are experiencing the birth of numbers of children and transitioning with the Baby Boom generation.
Read More
The Apostle Paul wrote two letters to his young disciple and son in the faith, Timothy. His encouraging, yet challenging words to Timothy speak to the truth that the young man had a place in the story of God and the building of Christ’s body, the Church. It was critical that Timothy not neglect the gift that had been entrusted to him (1 Timothy 4:14); that he fulfilled his ministry. Two thousand years later, these words ring true for this generation of young adults.
For the most part, we are all concerned about the decline of young adults in the life of the Church. Much can be (and has been) said about the direction and actions of older generations; the need for the Christian community to engage culture and become a relevant voice in society. But the full weight of decreased involvement of this generation in the local body of believers cannot be placed on our parents and grandparents. Indeed, there is and has always been a specific call on the lives of twenty-thirty somethings. Maybe we never knew it. Maybe we have been demotivated. Maybe we got distracted. Regardless of the why, it is still our responsibility to “set an example for all believers”. It is time for young adults to RECLAIM their place and become the Church that the world needs for the glory of Jesus Christ.
Read More
Tags: Adult Education, Children, Medium, Oklahoma
Upward Sports Ministries
FUMC is beginning its third year of Upward Sports. Currently we host three sports programs for children ages 3 – 7th grade. Football enrolls around 300. Cheerleading enrolls 50 – 60 and basketball has around 250 participants. This translates to approximately 400 families participating in FUMC Sports Ministries. Families come from several suburbs in the south Tulsa area.
Read More
