July 25, 2018
Rev. William C. Bills

I have been involved in starting new, band-led worship services four times at two churches. Why four times at two churches? Because I failed the first time out twice. It would be fair to say that “we failed”, but as the leader of those projects I assume my responsibility for the results. It would be nice to take credit for the success and ignore the failure. But failure often leads to later success.

The best time to add a worship service is when the primary service is at 75% of its seating capacity. At 75%, it can start to feel crowded. This applies to the parking lot, the kitchen, the nursery, and the bathrooms. Adding a service gives people options for service time and style of music, but the goal is never to split up the congregation. In terms of mission, a new service should be added to reach new people. Current attenders may like a choice in service time or music style, but a new service should be aimed at new people.

Adding a video screen, putting together a band, and running an ad in the newspaper isn’t enough. Building a new worship service takes commitment and effort. Relationships have to be built and invitations extended. A lot happens behind the scenes.

Our team has taken training through The Reach Network. We know what to do, but we can’t do it ourselves. What we need is seven teams of seven people to build our infrastructure. The seven teams and respective chairs are: Worship Planning (Mike Scholes); Sermon Planning (Rev. Bills); Children and Youth (Diane Constan); Small Groups (Julie Bills); Technology (Ethan Stout); Set Up and Tear Down (Gregg Alchin); Hospitality (insert your name here). Without infrastructure, the service isn’t sustainable. If you want to help, contact the team leader or contact me. You can help without changing services. Just help for six months and then go back to the other service. Or… go to church twice each week (It won’t hurt you!). We will just get someone new to take your place as the service grows.

Seven teams with seven members each should provide us with a guest list of 490 people (assuming that they each invite ten guests). If 10% of those invited come to a new service that would be 49. Add to that the 49 on the launch team and the opening service attendance will be 98. That would be the minimum for a successful launch.

The best way to make new Christians is to start new churches. The second best way is to invite someone you know to attend church with you. If you would like to help start a new service, or if you know someone we can add to our guest list, please contact me or one of the team leaders named above. We need seven teams of seven and 490 names on the guest list to launch!

Mike Scholes, mikescholes@hotmail.com
Rev. William Bills, bbills@eluumc.org
Diane Constan, dianeconstan@gmail.com
Julie Bills, juliebills61@gmail.com
Ethan Stout, estout@eluumc.org
Gregg Alchin, greggalchin@johnegreen.com