We’re Adding a Second Service
If you’ve been paying attention, it won’t come as a complete surprise that the elders have officially decided to add a second service starting September 7th. While we don’t know the exact service times yet, they will likely be at 9 and 11 am.
If I’m honest, I’ve been reluctant to write this letter, in part because I know that the normal reaction to adding a second service is not one of excitement. I myself already feel like Sunday is my most exhausting day; just the idea of preaching another service is draining. It’s not just difficult for me; adding a second service puts a greater load on volunteers, and it can feel like it’s splitting the church.
So why are we doing this? We believe this is the next faithful step concerning the people God continues to bring to our church. A long-standing principle at JVC is that we want to make room for those in this valley who don’t yet know Christ. God, by his grace, continues to send us people who have not yet publicly professed their faith; it would be unfaithful not to do our best to make room for them.
If you’ve been at JVC for a while, you know we added a second service in January of 2020. In those initial months, I was surprised at how many new faces showed up—some of you came during that time! But COVID made it difficult to sustain, and we downsized our stage, allowing for 30 more seats. At that point, it seemed best to return to one service.
Five years later, God has continued to bless our church. We have more elders and deacons, more robust volunteer teams, and 54 more members than we did in January of 2020. We believe we are better positioned to add a second service than we were then.
The primary reason we want to do this is space. We want to make sure that there is parking and seating for everyone who comes on a Sunday, with particular care for those who are really nervous to visit a church for the first time. Unexpectedly having to walk your young kids along a busy road to get into the building, or having to go to the very front of the sanctuary to find seats (maybe not even finding seats together), are unwelcoming for visitors, particularly those who are walking into a Christian church for the first time.
Attendance is always a difficult metric, in part because there are large swings. This summer had some Sundays that were very sparse, yet others (like this past Sunday) were packed, and I watched several families struggle to find a seat. We’ve noticed a pattern: attendance reaches 130-140, then drops. This happens among churches in general; when seating and parking reach 70-80% of capacity, attendance goes down. The easiest way to break that barrier is to add a second service. Over the past year and a half, we’ve hit that attendance barrier several times; the next faithful step is to add a second service.
We are doing this in faith
The past couple of years, it’s frustrated me that we are too big for one service, but not big enough for two. We are trusting—and praying—that God will fill those empty seats. We trust that more visitors will stick around than in the past. And some former visitors may return if they know it will be easier to find a seat. We are under no delusions that God needs our church to reach people in this valley, but he has been using our church; we want to take this next step in faith, trusting that God will provide everything we need to make it sustainable.
We are holding this loosely
Our plan is to reassess how things are going in January and May of next year. If total attendance doesn’t go up, we will try to understand why and determine whether we should continue two services or not. We also want to be in tune with our volunteers so we don’t burn people out. We may even return to one service next summer and add the second service back when school starts.
We need your support
There is no way we can pull this off without your support. In the coming weeks, we will share practical ways to help, but for now, I simply ask you to pray and watch. Pray that God would bless these efforts, if it’s his will. Pray that God would fill our seats and that we would see more people profess faith in Jesus. Second, watch; keep a lookout for people in your life that you could invite when we launch the second service. Perhaps it’s people you’ve invited to a Christmas Eve or Easter service; perhaps it’s a neighbor who just moved in. I’ve learned that adding a second service both makes it easier to invite people, and that new people seem more willing to show up.
We will continue to move forward with developing a new facility with adequate space. Adding a second service is an intermediate step toward providing a large enough space to reach the people in our community.
I’m sure you, like me, have certain reservations about adding a second service. I’ve found comfort in remembering that, whenever I’ve felt spread too thin, God has always used that to grow me. I believe this will happen for all of us as we work to make room for more people this September.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of the other elders. We are holding an informational meeting on August 24th; we plan to go over the budget for the next year but will also have time for questions about the change two services.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon