Going to Additional Services in Your New Church Plant Doubling, Tripling or Quadrupling Your New Church’s Potential By Tom Cheyney

Going to Additional Services in Your New Church Plant

Doubling, Tripling or Quadrupling Your New

Church’s PotentialBy

Tom Cheyney

Adding Multiple Services

• It is always critical when and how a new church adds additional services.

• Questions that should be addressed:*Why are we adding additional services?

*How will we add additional services?

*When will we begin additional services?

Seeking Clarity• A lot of terms are used to

refer to multiple worship hours.

• Here are some of the most popular:– Second Service– Multiple Worship Hours– First Service– Early Worship– Weekend Services– Friday Night Live– Thursday Night Thunder

Still Seeking Clarity

• Another set of terms that are popular today are:– Overflow Rooms– Mirrored Services– Video Venues– Segmented Services– Flavored Services

• We will look at each one of these later as we move forward!

What is missing?• “Perhaps the missing ingredient in adding

additional services not the lack of new people but the lack of compelling drive to reach an enlarged harvest, the lack of vision in how to raise enough lay talent to staff additional services, and the lack of effective leadership that can do the political maneuvering necessary to rally the church in support of such new outreach.”

Carl George, Break Specific Growth Barriers, pg 178.

Times Have Changed!

• The diminishing attraction of the Sunday morning-only church has caused the creation and emergence of the

multiple-days-a-week church.• Those of us born after the early to mid-

1950s have pushed the edges of church work desiring options for attendees outside the traditional worship service.

Times Have Changed!

• The resulting alternatives have been to either adapt or to quietly grow older and smaller.

• This has been the choice of many churches, thus creating the need for thousands of new churches as a result.

• Remaining the same is less demanding and a whole lot cheaper! It never stirs the stagnant waters of tradition or the waves of the status quo.

• It is always the “road most traveled,” sadly!

Times Have Changed!

• The alternative is far more challenging and far more time-consuming.

• It is expansive and often expensive, but the outcome equals kingdom riches and additional brothers in eternity.

• The road less traveled is filled with change. It is a path that moves your work towards becoming younger and larger by offering options rather than short trips to nostalgias of bygone eras.

Times Have Changed!

• The majority of churches during the last 30 years of the past century had chosen the road most traveled and experienced the path of growing older and smaller.

• We have moved from 1955 to 2005. What is happening now will be reported as fact in 2005. Most multiple-days-a-week churches have been planted after 1985 and thus never had to battle that tradition of pouring the majority of its resources into the stalled Sunday morning schedule.

“Adding additional services is the most effective means

for increasing worship attendance!”

Lyle Schaller

Choices for Churches, p 87.

Challenging the Mid-Morning Worship Hour

• In the majority of existing churches the Sunday morning mid-morning worship service is the mainstay or focal platform of that church.

• When new churches meet in traditional time frames they can easily slide into the challenges that most churches face when seeking to implement another worship hour.


• Existing churches 7 years or older face the addition of a new worship hour as a challenge to what is familiar and comfortable!

• These churches look at those who desire the creation of a new worship hour as rebels.


• If you handle the creation of a new worship service or services poorly, the planter’s leadership will be in question and his dependability as well.

• If you handle it properly, it could do so much more to solidify the planter’s leadership than any other single decision.

What Keeps Us from Adding New Worship

Services?

• Fear towards change• Disruptions to the

momentum• Damaging existing

worship hour• Loss of members• Hurting church image

• Fear that laity won’t follow the new direction

• Hurting planter’s image

• Church could fire me!• The unknown

What Keeps Us from Adding New Worship Services?

• The members will opt for earlier hours for leisure times later on the weekend.

• No one will show up and it will be empty!

According to John Vaughn, 85% of growing churches

are in what can be called the multi-service model!

What Kind of People Should You Look for and Pray for in

Starting an Additional Service in Your New

Church?• Let’s take a look:

What Kind of People Should You Look for and Pray for in Starting an

Additional Service in Your New Church?

• People with an outward focus.• People that are always positive.• People who want to do something really great

for God.• People who are emotionally healthy.• People who own and are committed to the

church’s vision.• People who resemble pioneers as compared

to those who are settlers.

What are the Positive Steps That Result from Following These Time

Tested Ideas?• Your lay leaders will know how to assist

you in developing an additional service.• What they are up on they won’t be down

on.• They will know how to get involved.• They will present the new service to

attendees in a positive light.• Your key leaders will know how they fit in

and what they need to do to help the new services succeed!

For every 150 active attendees, you have

enough talent to develop additional praise teams or

choirs!

The majority of resistance towards adding additional services comes from members who do not feel there is a need or are not willing to sacrifice their comfort in order to help it succeed.

So Why Should You Start an Additional Service or Services?

• To continue growing when you face the temptation to stall.

• To further reach your target area by providing solutions for various family schedules.

• To continue to carry out the Great Commission – teach, baptize, preach

An Answer to Adding Additional Services:

• First, everyone who desires to serve can be involved.

• Second, laborers will be raised out of the harvest to step into critical areas instead of sitting, and watching the show.

• Third, you will see the Great Commission carried out with real-life experiences.


(continued)• To keep your church from becoming

strangled by no room to grow.


(continued)• You allow the Lord through the Holy

Spirit to determine how great a harvest your new church can reach.

• You and your church will position for growth. This is especially true if you off-load the better attendees to a less- attended service.

It was Elmer Towns

• Back in the early to mid 1980’s Elmer Towns said regarding this issue that it is a “sociological strangulation” that becomes a disease in a church when its facilities are not sufficient for continual growth.

What Does a Multi-Congregational Church

Look Like?

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What Happens when Facilities are Full Every Sunday?

• First-time visitors do not usually return.• Parking becomes a huge problem.• Staff discontinue outreach and replace it

with business.• Church members become passive towards

inviting friends and prospects.• A full church says, “We don’t need you or

want you!” Why is that?

What Happens When Facilities are Full Every Sunday?

• Because if the church did not feel this way, they would add additional services quickly before they stalled their growth momentum.

Have you reached 80% capacity yet?

• Church building architects tell us that when you reach 80% capacity you will begin to strangle any chances for future growth unless you either add new facilities for additional services with additional days of the week. Remember, extra space will not cause your new church to grow, but without it you could keep from growing.

DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE TOTALLY FULL TO ADD EXTRA SERVICES!

Warning, Will Robinson!

Six Ways to Provide Needed Space

1. Reassign or relocate space.2. Clean out or discard “stuff” from

space used as storage.3. Renovate!4. Make rooms multi-purpose.5. Use space multiple times.6. Borrow, lease, or rent additional

space.

LifeWay Christian Resources Architects (SBC) Tell Us:

• We travel to church in a car that holds 2.5 people (parking challenges towards growth)

• We sit (unless we have theater chairs) 18 inches apart.

• We usually put a Bible and our “extra” stuff on the chair next to us.

• Front-row seats are used only after everything else is full

• Usually on any given week you have about 20 to 32 percent of your people away from church due to work or leisure.

What We Can Learn from these Issues:

• People do not visit churches more than once, if at all, that don’t have room for them.

• Cramped parking is an initial danger sign for strangulation. (Share CBC story)

• Have your lay leadership count empty seats to estimate growth capacity without adding days or services.

• Also do the same for empty parking spaces.

( X 2.5= _______ realistic growth estimate)

What You will Learn:

• Adding extra services or extra days of worship will allow your church to grow without building expensive facilities. (Become a five-days-a-week church

or more! Option. Options. Options!)

Some Suggestions:

• Move a specific number of key leaders into the new service or services.

• Seed the additional services with laity that are energized.

• New services allow growth by reaching those who need alternatives to regular hours of worship

• New services first grow by transfer growth from existing services before they grow from new growth

• Then the other services will have room to become feeder services into the fellowship.

Things I Have Discovered from Having Multiple Services

• Few visitors attend the early “first watch” service (8:00 AM)

• The usual amount of visitors attend the middle service (9:15 – 9:30ish)

• The largest amount of growth on the Sunday format will continue to be during the last morning worship hour (10:30 – 11:00ish)

Things I have Discovered from Having Multiple Services on

Saturday Night:• Few visitors attend the earlier of two

Saturday evening services unless brought by a friend who attends that hour. (5:30ish)

• Most churches start two Saturday services instead of one so you can serve in one hour and worship in the next hour.

• If you start only one it becomes a drain on existing servants instead of developing new ones.

• The church then wears itself out!

Things I Have Discovered from Having an Extra Service on Thursday or Friday Nights:

• These services are target-specific audiences such as:– Dinner & The Bible– Thursday Night Thunder– Post-Modern– Twenty-Somethings– IMPACTS– Explosions

Realize One Strategic Point:

The entire body of the church must become smaller in order to

become larger! If you keep the original worship

service together instead of dividing it, you will downsize the body and

eventually destroy the momentum! (Example: CBC’s New Pastor)

Once You Stop Dividing, You Strangle the Body and

Disease the Church

This is why we start new churches: because existing ones ceased to fertilize the

cell and new bodies are needed to continue the task

of evangelization!

How to Continue to Grow:

• Add Bible study classes

• Begin small groups

• Add additional services

• Add additional days

• Begin additional bible study hours

• Add new ministries

Another Good Reason for Adding New Services and

Days:

We are practicing good stewardship by using

facilities on multiple days.

Some Hindrances to Starting New Services or Days

• Space used by novelty ministry (we store our equipment in this room or building).

• Landowner mentality permeates members (it’s our space)!

• We use this area as a lounge for our workers.

• People do not want to let go of “small family” feel.

A Few Things Starting a New Service or Services Will Do• New specialists will flow out of the harvest.• Extra opportunities to worship also

provide additional resources and funds for growth and expansion.

(Average giving today = $20 per week. So 100 new worshippers could give an additional $2,000 per week or $104,000 per year.)

• Evangelism continues.• Church continues to grow.• Church debt reduced more quickly.• Attracts new members.

Moving Forward (How Do You Do It?)

• Answer this question: “What are the benefits of creating a new service?”

• Answer this question: “What are the drawbacks to creating a new service?”

• Have you sought the advice of others who have done what you are trying to do?

• Begin with the lay leadership and announce that you are thinking and praying about going to an additional service or services. Ask for their input but don’t relinquish leadership by making it a public opinion poll. (Take a survey, not a political poll.)


• Talk openly about the fears and discomfort of creating new services. Remind everyone that God would desire to continue to provide for others a way to attend worship and receive Jesus. Keep the congregation informed. Don’t dump it on them. Move them with you.


• Remind the congregation often of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20)

• If you are starting a new hour of worship on the same day, seek 50 people to make the shift from each of your existing services. This should give you 100 people to spark the new service hour.

• Remind the congregation that you are creating a new service for outreach reasons, not just for overcrowding. Real reasons: evangelism, outreach, and soul-winning.


• Research whether or not you need to develop a new format or style to worship (music, preaching, length, senses).

• It will take faith, courage, and investment by the church to begin something new.

• Remind them of the 80% full factor. “We need to go to additional services even if we are not totally full yet.” (Expand ministry)

• Review what the church leaders are doing so that fear of innovation does not set in.


• Answer as many excuses for not adding a new service as you can ahead of time to eliminate “vision killers” that can multiply and destroy growth opportunities.

Leadership Builds Character!

But Ministry Maintains Continual Growth!


• Ask leadership to help identify members who are most likely to attend the new service.– Here is what we know: older adults attend

early Sunday morning worship – Singles like Saturday night if it is energized.– Couples with teenagers are interested in

Saturday services if Bible study is part of the package.


• Recruit church members to seed the new service.

• Build commitment among seed families.• Send out a special newsletter to them only.• Remind them of the benefits.• Tell them about the victories that resulted

from their commitment to be part of this ministry.

• Develop future staff from seed members for the new service or services.


• Launch the new service with a commissioning and commitment service.

• Write out the list of workers you will need for the new service. Don’t forget workers such as: parking lot workers, welcome greeters, music leaders, singers, ushers, Technical workers, etc. (The result: 50%+ servant expansion)

• Promote the new service or services to your fringe members and prospects.


• Launch the new service or services the second week of September (right after Labor Day weekend) or March (beginning of spring in most areas).– Timing is everything! Elmer Towns called this

the “Law of the Two-Humped Camel.” – Stay away from things such as vacations,

possible weather issues, etc.

Cycles of the Seasons


• Launch the new service in a small, more intimate setting and not the large worship facility. Use a mid size youth center or Sunday School room.

• Announce plans for going to a new service or additional service days at least seven weeks before. Do a weekly countdown to the big event in order to maintain excitement and continue enlistment.

What Does a Seven-Week Countdown Look Like?

Let’s take a look.

Week Seven

• Begin drawing attention to the need for developing new service formats, being sure not to limit them to Sunday only as you speak broadly.

• Offer ideas you and the key lay leadership are praying through.

• Ask members to pray for new services’ success and growth.

Week Six

• Have a “Questions and Answers” fact sheet available for a worship insert that answers most positive and negative questions ahead of time in a positive way.

• Begin talking privately to individuals from whom you would want early commitments.

Week Five• Ask laity to begin praying about their

commitment to and involvement in the new service or services.

• Be clear as to the style and format of the new services.

• Point people to the need for targeted services if you are going that way.

• Continue making countdown announcements.

Week Four• Have elders and deacon members share

testimonies and support of the new service or services.

• Seek commitments from half of those leaders to attend and contribute leadership for that new service.

• Continue to enlist attendees and ministry leaders. Hand out commitment cards.

• Call all of these seed members.• Continue making countdown

announcements.

Week Three• Have key lay leaders share their commitment to

the new service.• Share the names of key leaders making the

commitment to attend the new service.• Have someone in the church who has visited

another church with multiple services to share his or her experiences. Have their testimony include why they are planning on attending the new service.

• Mail out an announcement letter to fringe members and prospects.

• Collect commitment cards from members in all existing services.


Week Two• Pastors, share benefits and vision with

congregation via a visual presentation clarifying the new service format and style.

• Have the new band lead worship this week for practice and recruitment purposes.

• Meet with seed members for a luncheon and worker enlistment time. (Hand out token gift: coffee mug, key chain, etc.)

• Ask for continual prayer and commitment.

Week Two• Follow up with fringe members and

prospects by phone.• Place ad in newspapers. • Put lawn signs out all over target area. • Additionally, every attendee ought to

place one (lawn sign) on their home lawn or outside their subdivision.

• Invite the press to write a feature on your new service launch.


Week One• Share the number of seed members who have

volunteered.• Hold a commissioning service and have them

come forward for the church to pray over them.• Build the excitement towards the new service

as if you were commissioning missionaries for the field.

• Send reminder cards to all enlisted members and fringe members or prospects.


Launch Day!

Preach the same message you preached or will preach

at the other services.

Launch Day!

Don’t talk about the similarities of all services.

Speak about their differences and

magnify them!

Things That Could be Magnified:

• Music • Dress• Style• Niche• Energy

• Energy• Volume• Expression• Singing

Don’t Forget the Preschool!

• Remember that a nursery is a necessity in new services unless you do a Singles service on a Friday night or Saturday.

• Start small and grow with the growth.

• Provide full preschool once the service grows to full size.

At the 120 Day mark, begin your analysis of the new

service or services.

Improve what needs improving and continue to

develop your worship format!

Six Key Questions to Ask in Analyzing Your Results:

1. Did the total attendance of the church go up with the addition of the new service or services? (Compare this to the past two years at the same time.)

2. How do your people feel about the church now?

3. What about your seed workers? Have they grown in Christ?

4. Have new people been added and reached for Christ in all services that might not have been reached?

5. Is there any difference in the church’s income? fringe members?

6. Would people miss the extra service?

What other churches are doing in this field:

Sunday formats

• 7:00 AM Break of Day (The Cafe)

• 8:00 AM First Watch (Traditions or Classic)

• 9:15 AM Contemporary (CBC Live)

• 10:45 AM Blended

• 12:30PM Blended

• 7:00 PM Niche Targets

What Other Churches are Doing in This Field:

Other Day Formats: Saturday Evening• 5:30 PM Contemporary• 6:45 PM Revved up with Intense Music• 6;45 PM Jazz Format• 6:45 PM Country Music ChurchFriday Night• 6:30 PM Dinner and the Bible • 7:45 PM Re-charged Singles Service and Coffee

HouseThursday Night• 7:30 Thursday Night Thunder (Edge music)

Additional Helps

Congregation Prayer Card

• We realize that every great undertaking for God must be faithfully undergirded with fervent prayer. We therefore commit to pray faithfully for the success of our church’s new worship services.

• Couple’s name:__________________• Address:_______________________• _______________________________• Phone:_______________

“Pray without ceasing” 1 Thessalonians 5:17, KJV).

Some Issues to Be Considered in Moving to Multiple Services• How will multiple services enable you to further

reach your target area?• What are your plans for future worship service

expansion?• Have you thought through the issue of

maintaining the rhythm of expanding and enlarging as compared to expanding and daughtering.

• Have you faced the parking challenges for adding extra services?

Some Issues to Be Considered in Moving to Multiple Services• Have you considered a video-linked overflow

room for worship?• Have you developed a rationale for adding two

Saturday night worship services?• How will any new services be staffed? Are you

adding business or adding workers?• Who could serve as additional band members

or additional praise team members?• How can you effectively minister to the children

during additional worship services?

Some Issues to Be Considered in Moving to Multiple Services• Have you looked at large-group

children’s ministry as a viable tool during Saturday services? This is what is called “theater for children and by children.”

• Who are the key opinion leaders that can help you with this change?

• Have you asked the question: “What would our preferred future look like if we were at 150% of our present capacity?”

Some Issues to Be Considered in Moving to Multiple Services• Have you asked, “What should we be

doing and not doing?”

• What is a realistic time line for bringing this into reality?

• What are you going to do with 100% growth in people?

Others to be Added Shortly

Thank you,

Tom Cheyney

Documents

Going to Additional Services in Your New Church Plant Doubling, Tripling or Quadrupling Your New Church’s Potential By Tom Cheyney