12 things I learned when our church started another worship service

5.  I learned that…Like any change at your church, not everyone will adopt it.

12 Things I learned when our church started another worship service

I don’t think anyone has left our church because we started another service.  But like any change, I’ve learned that not everyone accepts it when a church becomes one congregation, with two worship services.

Like the newcomer who once explained to a pastor how someone apologized to them for the ‘other people’ (eyes rolling) who were coming and jamming up the church parking Sunday mornings!

Any transition in a church can be tricky.

But by God’s grace, and a credit to the founding service, 99% who were there when the other service started see themselves, I think and hope, as positive, faith-filled, pioneers.

For the first two years of the service, a husband and wife who had been part of the founding service in the 1960’s and were now in their late 80’s, would be there every Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. and sit in the pew.  And no matter how bumpy the service, or limited the attendance, or bad the weather, they could come and say ‘great service, I think this is wonderful.’

Risking change, though most but not everyone will embrace it, is part of the church.

In our case no one, me the pastor included, knew where it would lead.  But it has been a wonderful journey of change and transition with God.  And it’s never been boring!