Worship

Adding A Second Church Service Without Killing Your Momentum

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Has your church ever tried to add a second weekend worship service, only to have it flame out? This was the question that was asked on a small church pastors’ discussion board recently.

Several of the responses were, understandably, along these two lines:

“That’s a ‘problem’ I’d love to have.”
“Going to two services killed our momentum. Never again.”

So, yes, needing to add a service is a ‘problem’ many churches would love to face, but if you don’t do it well, it can hurt more than it helps. So let me share with you how our church did it without killing our momentum.

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Pastors, We Need To Stop Expecting Worship Leaders To Do Our Job For Us

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There are two interesting, but conflicting conversations happening among church leaders right now. Especially, but not exclusively, on social media.

On the one hand, people are decrying the supposed shallowness of today’s worship songs.

On the other hand, there’s a push to keep sermons under 20 minutes long.

It’s not always the same people saying both of those things, but I have noticed a surprising amount of overlap.

Does anyone else see the irony here?

At the same time that many are encouraging shorter sermons, we’re also wanting deep theology from three-minute songs.

Pastors, if the theology being presented in our churches isn’t deep enough, it’s not the worship leader’s responsibility to make it deeper. That’s our job, our calling and our mandate.

A mandate that can’t always be done in 20 minutes or less.

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4 Reasons Our Church Stopped Doing ‘Come and Watch’ Events (And 5 Alternatives)

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Many churches have experienced great success and growth doing big ‘come and watch’ events.

Even if choir cantatas on Christmas and Easter have been replaced by a special illustrated message with stage design, lighting and video, the idea is the same – to draw people in so we can present the gospel to them.

The big ‘come and watch’ event may still work in some places, but many church leaders (like Carey Nieuwhof, in a recent helpful post) have found that they work less well than they used to – or we thought they did.

Several years ago, our church stopped doing ‘come and watch’ events on special Sundays, like Christmas and Easter. Then we stopped doing them altogether.

Here’s why:

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We Can Whine About the New Generation or Worship with Them – But We Can’t Do Both

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Why don’t people wear their Sunday Best for church any more?

A lot of older churchgoers (that is, my generation) seem to be worried about that lately.

I’d like to respond to that question with a couple of my own.

When did the members of my generation become such old fogeys? And why do they care so much about something that matters so little?

Yet that is part of a growing sentiment from my peers.

Have we forgotten how devalued we felt when they told us our music was too loud, our clothing looked silly and our opinions were wrong? It didn’t make us want to worship their way. It made us want to leave the church. And many of us did – never to return.

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5+ Churchy Things I’m Thankful For – Even If I Don’t Like Them

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For too many people “I don’t like it” is virtually indistinguishable from “this is bad.”

This lack of discernment is bad. Really and truly bad. Especially in the church.

When we elevate matters of taste to the level of right and wrong, we undercut our moral authority. People won’t trust us when we speak on things that truly are wrong.

As mature believers in Jesus – especially as Christian leaders – we should be able to tell the difference between our personal preferences and moral absolutes.

For example, here are five things I dislike, but I have discovered have some value.

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No, Our Church Doesn’t Sing New Music to Appeal to Nonbelievers

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Our church uses a lot of different tools to reach unchurched people, from personal invitations to community service events and more. But our church’s song list is not an evangelism tool. It’s meant to glorify God and involve the saints in worship.

So, if you and your church like singing the great old hymns of the church, go for it! Prefer new songs? Sing them with all your heart. But there’s no reason to keep knocking those who sing a different set of songs than your church does.

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The Glorious Inefficiency of a Healthy Small Church

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A great time of worship is like a great work of art. Or a great relationship.

Art, beauty and love are not efficient. Neither are worship, prayer or fellowship. They take too much time. They’re too sloppy. They’re too important to rush.

This is one the reasons I like small churches so much.

Big churches have to be efficient in everything they do. Small churches don’t.

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Young and Old Can Still Worship Jesus Together

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Gene is 90 and can’t always make it to church any more. And when he does, he can’t sit in the folding chairs we set up in the main room. So, while the rest of us go into the sanctuary to sit, stand, sing, clap and raise our hands in worship and learn from scripture, Gene sits quietly in an armchair in the lobby and listens.

When the service is over, the main part of Gene’s church experience begins. As people talk, laugh and hang out in the lobby, he stays in his chair. But he’s seldom sitting alone. People of all ages stop and chat with him constantly.

They bring him coffee. They enjoy his quiet friendliness and wisdom. They learn about his life. They listen as he shares his passion for painting. They pray for him and he prays for them.

A healthy church should always look something like this.

No matter how big or small the church is, these moments matter.

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5 Bad Reasons To Go To a Big Church

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I love big churches.

Any time massive numbers of people get together to worship Jesus, that’s a great thing.

But every church of every size has its advantages and its challenges.

So there are both good and bad reasons to attend big churches just like there are good and bad reasons to attend Small Churches.

Today, I’m continuing my four-part series looking at those reasons.

If this post is the first one of the series you’re reading, please understand that it is not a criticism of big churches. It’s a challenge to people who choose to attend big churches for the wrong reasons.

To see the other side of this, check out my previous post, 5 Bad Reasons To Go To a Small Church and come back later for my upcoming post, 5 Good Reasons To Go To a Big Church.

Even if your church is great, it matters that we attend for the right reasons. So if you’re attending a big church for any of the following reasons, you don’t need to stop attending a big church. But you may want to take another look at your motivations.

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#BestOf2014: We Can Whine About the New Generation Or We Can Minister to Them – But We Can’t Do Both

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This week, several people sent me a blog post from CNN.com, wondering what my take on it was. The article was built around an interview with a pastor who, according to CNN, if he “could preach a sermon to lift the souls of churchgoers across America, his message would be simple: Stop dressing so tacky for church.”

Really?

One message to every American churchgoer and it’s not about love, prayer, worship, knowing the bible better, sharing our faith, repentance, or feeding the poor? It’s about what we wear for an hour on Sunday?

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