Grow your church by adding a Saturday Service

We have just added a Saturday night service to our line-up and the results so far have been great!

Here's the background: we are a church of 700 people with two Sunday AM services. Both services were experiencing the classic 80% problem. Not every week, but often enough for us to realize that we are 'full' (by North American standards of comfort). So we debated whether or not to add another service on Sunday, or a Saturday night option. We chose Saturday to provide another option for people who work on Sundays; medical professionals, firemen, police, and some butchers! who work on Sundays.

Results after two weeks have been very good. We have had 188 and 185 coming each week. Our average attendance has jumped up by 70-100 people per week. (We have a lot of overlap right now. That will shake out in the next several months.) Our two morning services have softened up a bit and provided more room for people who want to come in the morning. We already noticed that the demographics of this Saturday night service are considerably younger than our morning services. When asked why they chose Saturday night over Sunday morning, several young families said that it was much easier to get the little kids to church on Saturday, than to wake them up and get them ready Sunday morning.

We also have noticed that we are getting some new seekers from the community at this service. They saw the ad in the paper, or they came for the coffeehouse we run beforehand. The atmosphere on Saturdays is more casual, relaxed, and fun.

So that's all for now; I'll keep you posted.

Dr. Bill