Riddle Me This......
 

Riddle Me This Batman......

I recently visited a medium size (approx. 350 people) UPC church that I last visited about 9 years ago. Nine years ago when I visited the church was very full, probably at about 95% of capacity so effectively full.

I knew somebody that was a member of that church so when i saw him a few days later I mentioned to him that his church needed to build a new building or add additional services since they were so full. He told me that they had only been in their current building about 3 years so they were not able to build again this soon.

Fast forward 9 years to 2015 and I visited this church again and found out that this church is still full BUT has never build a new facilty NOR added any services!!!

This astounds me. I am curious what you folks that are still UPC or old time Pentecost of some brand say about this. Is this common?

Since 9 years ago this church has moved from having a Sunday morning and Sunday night service to one very long service on Sunday afternoons. They have Sunday School at 1 pm then worship service begins at 2 pm and lets out 3:30 - 4:00 pm (potentially 3 hours of church - which it was and maybe a little more the Sunday I visited recently).

For the life of me I can't understand why this church has not moved to add at least one more Sunday service to split the congregation to allow room for growth. This is a well organized church with intelligent leadership, a good music program, and seemingly well organized. I am must baffled.

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You call that a "long" service?

Wow, we could all fit into a full size Chevy suburban, and yet our regular sabbath day meeting lasts from 12 to about 2 or 2:30...

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I remember services starting at 6 or 7 pm and easily rollin on past midnight... midweek services, that is...

And that was a UPC new church home missions plant with about 50-75 people usually.

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I don't the size of a church has anything to do with the length of the service or am I missing something? Yes, I do think 3 hours a very long time for service although I have done 2 1/2 hours before when for about a year we attended a Sunday School class at Christ Church that was between the two morning worship services. We would either go the first Worship service and stay for the Sunday School class or go to the Sunday School class and then the second Worship service.

Right now at my current church our 9 am service is about 1:45 long but needs to be 1:30 to get the parking lot cleared out for the 11 am service. The 11 am service is about 2 hours long and so is the 6 pm one. Then the middle o the week we have small group classes and our "University" classes.

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Well, that explains it lol.

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The best thing this congregation could do would be to start an offshoot church, or daughter work. Trying to split services into two services is just a church trying to hold more believers than it can handle, in my opinion. Our understanding needs to be that we are not building A kingdom, but the kingdom of the Lord. If your church has grown to the point that it can't hold the people, it is time to open up daughter works, and to allow the church growth in that way.

Problem is, the pastor(s) don't want to lose the income the number of people bring into the congregation. A true servant leadership would want what is best for the people, and not what is best for building "their" kingdom.

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In some areas particularly in that area it is very expensive to build and the Pastor who built the building has become very ill. The new guy might not have the confidence to do that. I don't know the new guy.

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The church is still FULL with that three-stepper stuff? Who would have thunk? :heeheehee

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:heeheehee

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Typical 3 stepper success story. Around 350 people and has been that for a decade!:icecream

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I understand and agree about undertaking a building program. What I don't understand and agree with is not utilizing the existing facility with more services to allow for growth.

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CC1 - do you think churches should have daughter works?

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Absolutely and this church does in some surrounding communities which I commend it for. That does not in any way effect how baffled I am that any church blessed to be full would allow that situation to remain static for a decade.

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God needs a break after working in one service. Two-back-to-back-service churches are obviously dead and dry.

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LOL!!! That is the best explanation I have heard thus far.

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Why don't you call and ask the pastor instead of asking the forum? If they are like a lot of churches I know, there is a continuing flow of families moving away and new people replacing them, which explains the head count.

I also know of several Baptist, AOG, Church of Christ and Catholic Churches around my area that have had the same number of people for over 20 years.

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There are reasons I can't go into here that make that something I can't do. The family I know that used to go there moved to another state a few years ago or I would ask them what the thinking is.

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350 is all that the pastor/pastoral team can handle?
Very few pastors of any sort can effectively grow churches past this point.
There are some notable exceptions, even in the Apostolic ranks.

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I know of a church about 2 hrs away that was experiencing great revival 400+ every service. It was standing room only, good church, strong in every way, Prayer,worship, revival, seperation, evangelism, and doctrine. after a couple of years they decided to build and after the church was built the spirit of revival was gone, the church today is beautiful with about a 1200 seat auditorium, with about 3-400. Now they are letting down in order to try and fill it again.
Not sure what happened?

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

well you know me. pretty much UPCI to the core.

our situation is a bit different. completed a beautiful buidling about 2 years ago, got a new pastor a year ago after the other guy retired...

we have grown by from less than 120 a service 3 years ago to over 200. we seat at max 350.

We are already talking about what we do when we get to 65% capasity. our long range plans include busting out walls, adding services, changing to chairs, finishing out unfinished areas of the building.

we wont be doing what this church is doing. So I wouldnt say this is a "UPCI" thing so much as a thing related to the addresss of the church you visited.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

I have no doubt that this pastoral team can handle more. The Bishop (retired pastor) is a smart man of good reputation. I don't know much about his successor, the Senior pastor of the last couple of years other than he has been in that church for a lot of his life and was on the pastor staff for several years before assuming the role of Senior Pastor.

It just seems strange to me. I would understand it if they seemed incompetent or unorganized but they do not.

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Yeah wans't you guys. another upchurch. lol

Glad to hear what God is doing for you all!

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I can't imagine you not being part of a church planning for the future! Because people, especially visitors who don't know those around them, like "personal space" I know a lot of people say that when a church reaches 80% of capacity it is essentially full. I think this church is probably 90-95% full which is a great job of maximizing the seating they have.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

studies we are working with say the number is actually 70% and thanks for the compliment! LOL


God has blessed us.... Hope we are wise enough to be good stewards of that blessing!