Unconventional Worship Programming
The Church at South Las Vegas (Henderson, NV) has created some unconventional worship programming.
Sandwich 1 worship experience between 2 preaching experiences.
In other words, instead of adding a full new service, they simply added a half service. Not only does it let the band play one less service, but it also allows The Church at South Las Vegas to maximize the number of services they can have on Sunday mornings.
They do not use this format for every service. They currently have services on Saturday evenings at 6:00 and Sunday mornings at 8:30, 9:00, 11:00, and 1:00. For Sundays at 8:30, they begin with preaching, and then the 8:30 service stays for the worship at the 9:00 service.
After a month, so far the feedback is positive, and about 90% of the 8:30 service stays for the 9:00 worship.
For Discussion:
- What are some other unconventional formats for worship programming?
dan Said,
July 2, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Good topic. Each Sunday afternoon we meet at the home of whomever is hosting that month (May/June was our month). There are around ten or so of us plus two babies.
Everyone brings food, and we begin our time together by sharing a meal together - a reoccurring thing in the NT, apparently eating together is really important to God. We then get into a more serious mode by going over a passage of Scripture, talking about it, and being guided by our learned seminarian among us. We sing a few songs, take communion together, and then pray for each other.
Eventually everyone leaves, and we take care of each other through the week as we are each salt and light to our co-workers, neighbors, and people in general.
It’s very much like what Chinese Christians are doing, but without the Communist govt. breathing down our neck. What strikes me the deepest, though, are the kids of all the house churches, and how they see “Church” as people, not a place. They don’t quite understand the concept of “going to church.” I think that is a VERY good thing!
Tyler Said,
July 2, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
great food for thought as we’re considering a 3rd service (meaning 3 different services style wise) and this is an interesting idea.
brian Said,
July 2, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
great ways to think outside of the box, but i don’t completely understand. isn’t the need to have multiple services because of the lack of space to have everyone together in one space? (realizing that another main reason is to meet various needs of people with different times). so if a space is the issue, how does one fit everyone in one space for worship?
Scott Fillmer Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 6:30 am
that is pretty interesting… I like seeing churches try new and different things… polls on how it went, not so much but how else do you know if it was a success or not
Jesse Phillips Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 9:47 am
WOW! Sounds super interesting! I LOVE this innovation!
I too LOVE seeing new and different things - does that make me superficial?
I wonder how the band feels when a bunch of people are coming in and out. Is the second sermon different content or the same? I assume it’s the same. So basically they just drop the very first worship set of the day - good idea.
Dwight Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 9:50 am
Here is an idea I have been kicking around…
We are a traditional church with a large number of senior adults. About half our church would like a more contemporary service, the older half hymns only. Not enough for two services nor space for a satelite service. Now the point:
8:30 am Senior Sunday school
9:30 Traditional Worship
9:45 Morning Service/Message
10:30 Fellowship /Coffee
10:40 Contemporary Worship
11:00 Family Small Groups/Sunday School
Noon: Let’s eat like Christians are supposed to!
While there are many issues involved, this allows those who are against contempoary worship to leave after the message during the coffee time. For those who want to worship they can stay in the sanctuary and have the typical greeting/handshake time (which is a continuation of worship) before the worship team comes forward and leads the music worship. If they are dying for coffee, they can wait fifteen or so minutes and grab a cup before heading to their small group/Sunday school.
This has not been tried…just an idea in my head to deal with some of our church struggles.
Jeremy W Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 10:31 am
To Dwight… I led worship at a church once with a similar situation (two worshiping communities vying for their own “style”). While this is a whole other issue in and of itself (I would suggest starting by teaching what worship is, how to worship, why we worship, and how to serve one another, etc.) what we did to “accommodate” everyone in our particular situation was to start with a traditional set of music (most everyone came), then the message, then a time of greeting (10 minutes), then a contemporary worship set. Most of our “older” folks left during the greeting time, the ones that stayed continued to complain. Oh well… Jesus didn’t please everyone… we can’t either, right?!
Word of encouragement… be anointed, spirit-led, and fresh, and you can sing POLKA and people will experience God. He’s NOT in a style!
JW
Deborah Whittington Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
I attend the 8:30 service and I like the way it is setup with preaching first and then the Praise & Worship teams come on the scene at 9:00. This gives my husband and I a chance to meet and see people in the 9:30 service that we normally wouldn’t see.
GREAT IDEA!
Henry Sneed Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
I’m the Community Pastor at The Church at South Las Vegas. Before I explain how the transition works, I’ll give you an overview of how we came to the decision. We had an 8:30, 9:45 & 11:30 service. In discussing ways to eleviate over-crowding in our Children’s ministry and parking lot in the two later service (we’ve grown from 100 to 2,700 in 5 years), we came up with a Summer schedule of 9, 11, & 1pm. Througout the discussion, we realized that the people who attend the 8:30 service were there because of work schedules, convience of going to church and having a longer day,family time, etc. After realizing these points, we can up with doing the preaching first and then worhsip. Below I’ve provided some points on how preaching then transitioining into worhsip has worked for us.
* We do a 3 minute video opener that introduces Pastor Benny at the end. This denotes the start of the preaching for the 8:30 service.
* Pastor Benny preaching for 25 minutes. While he is giving the altar call/closing prayer, the worship team/band/choir is making their way into position.
* The worship team plays a medium tempo song and then transitions into the full worship set (Praise & Worship).
* A pastor comes up to transition the service and dismisses the 8:30 crowd after worship and we have a 2-3 minute greeting time to allow for them to exit.
Great & Innovative Idea
Elyse Said,
July 3, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
I absolutely LOVE the new format! I used to have to work on Sunday mornings at 10am. With the previous format I would be at the 8:30 service but have to leave 5-10 minutes early. Which upset me because I always missed the end of Pastor Benny’s preaching. Not to mention my exit was distracting to some. With this new format I can enjoy all of Pastor Benny’s message as well as full worship while still leaving for work on time. And my exit is during a natural break in service.
Fortunately, I don’t have to work anymore on Sundays, but I can understand the convenience and importance of this service shift. It really does open up a new horizon of opportunities to expand God’s Kingdom. Isn’t that what we are all about anyway?
It’s new. It’s fresh. It’s different.
Benson Hines Said,
July 4, 2008 @ 7:30 am
In a year of attending 134 weekend services since August, I’ve been pretty surprised about how little of this kind of major worship service “adjustment” I’ve seen.
I have seen a few services with no worship at all, but otherwise not a lot of schedule innovation - which is okay, I’m just surprised at how “standard” our service elements are, even across drastically different churches.
So, hooray for any innovation at all, ’cause at least it gets us all thinking new thoughts.
Bruce Said,
July 5, 2008 @ 9:23 am
I was just mentioning to a co-worker how “systematic” our services have become. I am going to talk to our worship leader and pastor to see what their thoughts are. I Love the idea! It will be a good indication of how willing they are to change….despite how difficult that can be for most.
Jason Kimbrow Said,
July 6, 2008 @ 4:48 am
Question: Is there room for everyone to worship in the sanctuary? And aren’t the kids facilities still crowed because they are still in there for worship?