Church Growth and Work Schedules

Over the last year, I've been to several conferences and read quite a bit on strategies for church growth. All of them say the same thing - as a church, we're still stuck in the mindset of the 1950s, where we expect people to come to us. But there are too many things competing for attention in our culture, and attending church isn't considered mandatory in the way it used to be. A few generations ago, if you were an upstanding member of society you were expected to attend church. It's not that way any more - "no religious preference" is the fastest growing category in our society today.

So as a church, we have to find ways to communicate to people what we're about, what God is doing in the world, what a relationship with God can do for our lives, why church matters. It has to be an intentional effort on our part. We can't just throw our doors open and expect the pews to be filled.

One of the ways that the church seems to have fallen behind the times is in our schedule. For most of us in the mainline denominations, Sunday morning is worship time. But for working people, especially younger folk just getting in to the work force after high school or college, work schedules aren't Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. Our healthcare industry has to work around the clock, and the good men and women who work in that industry need to have schedules that can adapt to the needs of the hospital or clinic where they work. Weekends are the busiest time for most retailers, so the majority of people in the retail industry are expected to work on Sundays. And the list goes on. It takes a lot of work, and often some seniority, before people earn the privilege of a Monday-Friday, 8-5 schedule.

As a church, we need to find ways to adapt to this. Here at Pilgrim, we're looking into adding an evening service to our church's schedule, partly as a way to give us the chance to try out new things in worship, and partly as a way to adapt to changing work schedules. We hope to make extensive use of multimedia as well as adapt traditional worship structures to speak to people who are returning to Christianity after a long absence. It's one small way we can reach out and invite people, one small way we can tear down the barriers that keep people from coming to church.