Why 2 Services? Why Children’s Ministry Both?

In two weeks, we enter  a new era in the Grove Church.  I know what you’re thinking.  “We entered that two weeks ago, the era of the pastor that thinks he’s funny and sweats too much.”  Agreed.  But starting August 22nd, we will be starting a new era within that era?

I don’t know, but here’s the deal.  Starting on the 22nd we will go back to two services and we will offer Greenhouse (children’s ministry) for both of those services.   That’s something that we have not done before. I (mostly) joked on Sunday that we would think/feel differently about this had I been here since mid-June.  We would have been talking about all the reasons, getting motivated, etc.  However, that didn’t happen.  We strolled into town 10 days ago (as of the writing) and dropped this bomb two days later.

In 2014, “Charlie moments” like this won’t surprise anyone.  Hopefully, the staff will learn to manage them (me).  This isn’t 2014, it’s August 9th, 2010 and we are 13 days away from two services of Greenhouse, so here is some Q/A on the what, why and how.

Why two services?

Really one reason, fewer bodies in the room at once means a reduction in body heat and a reduction in how much I will sweat.  No really, if you have been their the last two weeks, we have been full.  It has been hard to find a seat.  We always want to have plenty of seats for people.  The same goes for the Greenhouse.  Have you seen some of those classrooms?  We may have to build a second level in some of those rooms, so we can stack the kids vertically.  This leads to the next question:

Why Greenhouse both?

Some of those classes are too crowded.  We have a lot of young families with young kids.  We want when someone drops off one of their kids for them to feel that they have left them in a fun, safe environment, not a chaotic, crowded one.  We need to “spread out” when the kids worship.  It’s also very important that the people who serve in the Greenhouse, be able to serve one service and worship in the other.  With two services, but only one of them having Greenhouse, people with children have to serve or worship, because they can’t have their kids with them both services.  Also, Grovers are more likely to come to the early service.  New people, most often, come to the later service.  We need to serve both.

Why so soon?

No one asked this question, but the size increase in the eyes of the staff asked the question for them.  The two biggest dates in the church year are obviously Easter and Christmas.  They are not only the two biggest seasons to celebrate, but they are also high attendance weeks with a lot of new people.  Putting those two aside, the busiest times for churches are when school starts in August and when school starts back in January.  People are making decisions to start new things.  They are wanting to “get back in the groove.”  So you will see attendance spikes and a lot of visitors.  A church needs to be ready.  You never know when it will be someone’s first week.  You never know when someone will walk through the doors of your church, when it is there first time to church ever, or their first time in years since (fill in the blank).  You want to have a great spot for them and for their kids.  You want them to be well-greeted and loved.  We will get a lot of these this Fall.  My guess is that this is even more the case living in a college town.

There is so much more to say, and we will continue this conversation tomorrow with some more questions about logistics.  However, we need to keep this in mind.  The reason we want to grow is because there are people in Fayetteville and in NWA that are far from God.  We want them to come and hear about the life they can have in him.  As long as there are people that need Him, we will make room for those people.