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.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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...

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

Well, that explains it lol.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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.

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

:heeheehee

Re: Riddle Me This......
 

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