heretic
The forgotten people asking for service
Posted on: 06/19/2009 10:14
The forgotten people asking for service
I live in Winnipeg and can find no church that has a evening service only Sunday morning
I am a person who work shift work and have all my life . it often makes it impossible to
attend church now I can only attend one out of every 3 Sundays .
I do not think this is an isolated problem their are lots of shift workers . Why not meet our needs . Jesus minster to the poor . and many poor are shift workers . but are left out of consideration by the church . The church seems only to meet the needs of retired people . Office workers 9 to 5 people .
Why not have 2 services on Sunday too give people who work different hours to get to a service . many other churches do . even if their are not a lot of us how about one church in Winnipeg doing an evening service may be a downtown one . they could even have a different minister on a rotation so the work load would not be to great .
I find the absents of a service . isolates you as a Christian and makes it difficult to follow gods way . the fellowship is very help full as well as the time to communicate with god . and glorify him the church has a roll to play in religion and it should play it
Comments
Wolfie
Posted on: 06/19/2009 10:56
Good Question... I have wondered this many times myself.
I will bump this for you.
*Peaceful Journey*
Wolfie
waterfall
Posted on: 06/19/2009 11:11
I agree I would have liked this option many times myself as I work every other weekend.
crazyheart
Posted on: 06/19/2009 11:21
And I guess we have to change some mind sets - the mind set of numbers. If a Sunday service in the evening only has a few people attending - that doesn't make it not a worthwhile service.
Here the Catholics have more at their Saturday night service than they do at there Sunday morning one.
RichardBott
Posted on: 06/19/2009 12:24
*sigh*
The difficulty - and this is as someone who has been trying to implement an evening worship service for about eight months - is that it effectively doubles the worship leadership workload. I don't mind that... in fact, I'd love it if my sole responsibility was the development of a varity of worship experiences. But we can't seem to figure out what to take out of my workload so I can add this one in.
We had a second service in the week - Wednesday evenings - for about two years. It averaged three people. One of the things I saw is that the evening congregation had about 10 "regulars", but folks tended to come about once a month. The thing was, they couldn't come on the same Wednesday. To catch all of them, we had to cover each week. I hate to say it, but we also have to take into account the stewardship of time and financial resources.
What will we do for music - will we pay the church musician for a second service? If not, will it be recorded music, a different musician(s), or no music?
Should the worship service look/feel the same as the other worship time, or should it be something different?
Is this a service that should be solely led by the lay leadership of the congregation - or will people see that as being a "lesser" service because of it?
In an urban setting, would one congregation out of three or four be willing to move their service to the evening?
Don't get me wrong - I want this to happen... I just know that these are some of the stumbling blocks we have to overcome to be able to offer worship experieces that are avalilable for folks like heretic.
Christ's peace - rb
RevJamesMurray
Posted on: 06/19/2009 12:43
Who will move their service? Entrepenurial congregations and clergy who want to have a thriving church.
RichardBott
Posted on: 06/19/2009 13:03
Yep.
The joy is going to be convicing the majority of Sunday morning worship participants of that.
In most UCCan congregations, they're the ones who don't tend to come out after the sun sets - especially during the winter months.
Christ's peace - r
RussP
Posted on: 06/19/2009 13:17
RB
Or sunning in Florida
IT
Russ
Mendalla
Posted on: 06/19/2009 13:36
I wouldn't mind an evening service sometimes, but given how small my UU fellowship is, it's never really worked there. Our minister is contracted for a limited number of Sundays (3 a month) so they would have to be lay-led = more work for the Worship Committee and the limited number of good lay leaders that we have. My UCC probably has the staffing to pull it off, but the demand would have to be there. No point in spending the money on heating, staff time to prepare, etc. if only a dozen people show up.
Now, if you wanted to run it as a "small group ministry" (the UU term, but I'm sure you UCCers must have a similar concept), with people gathering in a circle for a more shared, interactive type of worship, I could see it at either church. But I just can't see a full evening service working.
Mendalla
heretic
Posted on: 06/19/2009 14:08
sigh
What I was proposing was , one church in downtown Winnipeg that could be used for the evening service . and to have different minister preach in it on a rotation this service would be supported by many churches . then you could have the resources of many churches . and not just the 3 people you experienced that showed up . but many more people that needed this services from all churches in the city .
This is a failure in leadership from the church and in my mind call in to question . the ability of the management . I would say that if some one was an manger at IBM they could find this solution and implement it . or a high ranking civil-servant . In modern times we needed modern leaders who have good managerial skills . similar to the private sector regional mangers . or
senior public servants . Why not hire these people . a good executive pay for them selves .
Who in the church manages all the churches in Winnipeg and has the authority to implement this ?
then we could have some one organize an evening service in Winnipeg . on a regional bases .
other churches do this why can't we do it ?
let make this happen
Saul_now_Paul
Posted on: 06/19/2009 14:23
Our church has a Sat evening service, two on Sun AM. The first one is recorded and sent to a satellite church. Then there is also a Sunday evening service. There are 1800 people who attend each weekend.
They all believe exactly what I do... Maybe I should invite them to wondercafe
RussP
Posted on: 06/19/2009 14:30
Saul
Go for it, the more the merrier
Have a great weekend, my friend.
IT
Russ
rishi
Posted on: 06/20/2009 17:25
Go for it, the more the merrier
I agree! The more quality gatherings available the better. But I think there has to be an awful lot of spiritual vitality (or/and free food?) to actually make that happen.