I am looking for your feedback regarding a Saturday evening service. We are a progressive, purpose driven, non-demoninational church with several "good problems" we are dealing with. Our Church, Grace Community Fellowship (GCF) , is located in Eugene, Oregon. Coming from a conservative evangelical background, the thought of deviating from a traditional Sunday morning outline is a difficult change to consider.
The considration of the additional service on Saturday evening is for three reasons: (1) Our church mission is "To love people where they are at and help them follow Jesus". It doesn't say love them where we are at, but where they are at. The mission is the same, but the function may need to be altered to meet the ever changing dynamics of an unsaved world. (2) Space is a huge concern. We have undergone a near 3 million addition in the last 2 years to predominately inhance our CE department. Our general focus is 25-35 year old couples with kids so this was the absolute paramount need at that time. Our concern now is (3) Finances. As a board we agree, to a man, that taking on more debt is not responsible or possible taking into the consideration the existing debt taken on for the last build, the current economy and the dynamics of our body. At this time we are concerned with taking care of our staff and their needs which has for a long time has been overlooked.
God has done miraculous things at GCF. The last project was a total God thing. All the "experts" were astonished at what happened. They only predicted a third of what happened based on our size. We are very blessed and want to continue to be responsive to God's calling to serve our community, but our sanctuary is too small. We have tried 3 services on Sunday. 8:00/9:30/11:00, and no matter how hard we tried we could not get more than 50 people to come to the 8:00 service. A few of my fellow elders are interested in examining a Saturday evening service, including our senior pastor, but the overall feeling is that if it worked, why aren't many other churches doing it?
If you have a Saturday evening service I would like to discuss with you the challenges that you have in making it work and what you done. If you have tried and it didn't work I would also like your feedback. Thanks in advance for your help.
Mel Wofford