The River:
A Blog on Starting a New Worship Service
This page last updated on
12/31/2007
by Ronald W. Waters
Here is my blog on what has happened thus far:
Report on Launch Sunday,
March 14
Update - March 21 - added Mar 24
Update - March 28 - added Mar 29
Update - April 4 - added Apr 06 & updated Apr 08
Update - April 11 - added Apr 12
Questions & Answers - Updated links Mar 29
Advertising
Campaign - added Mar 27; updated Apr 1 & 6
Sample Ads (pdf file) - added Mar 27
Sample eCard Invitation - added Apr 08
First Impressions Team Descriptions
(pdf file) - added Mar 27
Sunday, March 14:
First, a special thank
you if you were part of our prayer support team. I sent an e-mail message to
about a thousand people (literally) Saturday morning, March 13, in addition to
earlier prayer requests to denominational prayer groups and friends. You were
one of many who responded that you’d be praying and that you’d like an update on
what happened. It meant so much to me Saturday night to read through all the
responses I had received to that point—a great encouragement.
We publicly launched our
new contemporary worship service, The River, on Sunday morning at 10:45 a.m. We
had done an extensive advertising campaign the week before in the local
newspaper, in addition to a sign in front of the church and a lot of
word-of-mouth invitations by our congregation. New people started arriving as
early as 10:00 a.m.
We can document 22 new
family units from the area that attended The River on Sunday. They included
anywhere from 1 to 6 persons present in each unit. Some attend other churches
and are not likely prospects. But many are not attending anywhere right now
and/or said they are looking for a church (it was our prayer to reach the
unchurched). So we believe God blessed us magnificently!
My
"talk" was
entitled, “God Is Nuts about You” and was straight out of John 3:16. (We
gave everyone who attended a bag of peanuts as a reminder—an idea inspired by my
friend, Pat Velanzon, of the Cross Keys Worship Center in Virginia.) I invited
people to come forward if they wanted to publicly declare their faith in Jesus,
but no one came—pretty typical in this era. However, three marked on the
response form that they had decided that day to follow Jesus as the one who
loves, forgives, heals, and leads their life. Praise God!
Our total attendance for
the day, including our 8:30 traditional service, was 182. That includes some
who attended both services and compares with our average attendance in 2003 of
102.
I was very pleased with
the response of the congregation. In addition to being very excited about all
the new people, they did a great job intermingling with our guests. Many had
already committed to being part of our
First Impressions Team to welcome new
people. One adult Bible fellowship (Sunday school class) threw a free soup and
sandwich lunch at noon, with the help of others in the church. Most of our
guests and many of our regular folks took advantage of it. And we also had a
team that delivered baked goods to each of the guests. The reports are still
coming in from their doorstep visits, but the responses of the people who
visited have been very positive.
So we are feeling blessed
and are rejoicing.
Of course, one Sunday
does not make a trend. So we are praying for a good return response this Sunday
plus more new families. We are gearing up for mailing
a postcard to 10,000
homes the week before Easter. So please continue to keep us in your prayers.
Again, thank you for your
faithfulness in praying for us. May you continue to know God’s blessing in your
ministry.
_________________
Sunday, March 21, 2004 - Second Sunday
During the intervening week, I wrote a letter to
each of the guests, thanking them for coming. I included a stamped feedback
card, asking them to tell us what they liked best, what we could have done
better, and asking if there are ways we might serve them. I also either visited
or called each guest household during the week.
We had at least 8 of the 22 new families from
March 14 return on the second Sunday, March 21. In addition, we had one other
family attend that had come once or twice before but were not present on the
14th. They indicated they are planning to attend regularly in the future.
Total attendance was 156, still up considerably from our 2003 average of 102,
even considering the people attended both the 8:30 and 10:45 services.
_________________
Sunday, March 28, 2004 - Third Sunday
I again wrote a letter to each of the guests
during the week before the 28th, reminding them of my message series entitled "Meet the Cast of
the Passion" and describing our Food Sunday on the 28th.
We had at least 6 families return from among our
guests on the 14th, the 21st, or both. And we had at least 6 additional new family units
attend for the first time. Total attendance at both the 8:30 and 10:45 services
was 155.
Sunday, April 4, 2004 -
Fourth Sunday/Palm Sunday
We sent a postcard to the women who are
"20-something to 60-something" inviting them to our monthly Friendship Circle
Women's Bible Study/Craft Group on April 6. (None of them came to the Bible
study.) That is the only follow-up we did this week with families who had
attended previously. I did send the standard "thank you for coming" letter
to those who attended for the first time. There were no newspaper ads this week.
We had 1 new family unit attend for the first
time. The return rate of previous guests was lower this week than in previous
week. However, we did have at least two family units come who had not attended
since the launch Sunday. A family that came on the 28th did not come Sunday
morning (he had to work), but 4 of the 5 family members attended a program with
a special guest speaker Sunday evening. And one woman, who lives about 15 miles
away, returned from the previous week. Last week she had declined to wear a name
tag or complete the registration form. This week she did both!
On Monday morning, April 5, I dropped over 10,000
Impact Cards in the mail to
neighborhoods within about a 2-mile radius of the church. This included a
special Easter invitation. Now we're gearing up for a second wave of new people
this coming Sunday for Easter. Our
Impact Web Site also has a
provision for sending an eCard that matched the Impact Cards in design. We
invited our people to send these to unchurched relatives and friends. See
a
sample of the eCard. We're praying for a great harvest on
Resurrection Sunday.
Sunday, April 11 - Fifth
Sunday/Easter
We had a good attendance at both of our services
for our celebration of the resurrection. I did a first-person dramatic
presentation of John the Disciple: An Eyewitness to the Resurrection. Total attendance was 239 (up from 193 a year ago for Easter). We are
still analyzing the communication slips to see how many new guests we had, but
there were several new family units again. We also had a number of out-of-town
family guests. We also served 200-220 people for our Easter brunch between
services (served 140 in 2003). I'll add more later.
_________________
Questions and Answers about the Process
For More on Starting New Worship
Services
_________________
If you'd like to draw on some
other resources on starting new services, we have some online at New Life
Ministries at
http://www.newlifeministries-nlm.org/online/faqs.htm#Worship .
One of the
best printed resources is a book by W. Charles Arn,
How to Start a New Service,
also available from New Life Ministries (http://www.newlifeministries-nlm.org/products/new_service.htm)
or through your local bookstore.
And visit our church web site
at
http://hammondavenuebrethren.com.
