The Problem with "Sandwich Services"

You know what I'm talking about - the "sandwich services" occur when a church squeezes a slice of Sunday School between the early morning and later morning preaching bread. Even though I went to seminary, and there should be some special theological term for a church with two services and Sunday School in the middle, I don't believe I ever heard one. Even in sem it was called 'sandwich services'. So, what's wrong with this arrangement for Sunday mornings? Nothing, IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR CHURCH TO GROW.

Here's why: first some background; why does a church even consider the sandwich service approach? Typical little church has one service w/ SS either before or after; little church grows and needs a second service; typical conversation between members of the church is that 'if we go to two services then we won't get to know everyone, or see everyone each Sunday' (Which by the way is the number one mentality that will limit your church's growth forever; you must break away from modality thinking, and become a sodality (see C.Peter Wagner's works)). Someone suggests that if they do a common Sunday School, then they will still have a chance to see people; everyone agrees to this idea as a great way to meet the need for for two services and still see each other. But they are wrong.

Here's why: you are mixing philosophies which will limit your growth. Going to two services is a Growth Philosophy, but maintaining one SS is a 'Family' Philosophy. The Family Philosophy is the mentality that wants to keep one service and everybody together, while the Growth Philosophy says that since we need to reach more people for Jesus let's open as many services as we can to reach more people. But these two philosophies crash into each other - and the place where they crash is usually the parking lot. Yes, that's right, and more embarrassing than a Sunday morning crackup at church. Because what these people forget when they try to merge these two competing philosophies together is a basic law of physics: two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

For while you rightly make room for extra bodies to dwell in the same pew space by having multiple services, you can't do the same for Sunday School if you want to just have one Sunday School session, using the classic 'sandwich services' approach. If your church is tapped out w/ one service, then it is quite likely that your parking lot will be very close. The only exceptions would be a church with a huge amount of parking space (maybe somebody in a rural area). But most suburban churches are limited in the amount of space for parking. So if the desired goal is that all the early morning people are supposed to stay for SS ("so we can see everybody together"), then when the late morning people show up, they are quickly going to run out of space for parking.

Then you will be encountering the problem known as 'sociological strangulation' (again, see C.Peter Wagner's works). People will try to park, not find a spot, and drive away. You will never know they were there. The end result of this is that the growth you were hoping would occur by adding a second service will be slowed (I'm not going to say eliminated, just slowed down).

There is a reason why 85% of the churches are 250 or less, and this is one, but not the only factor.

If you really want your church to grow by adding two services, then you just need to bite the bullet and go for two Sunday Schools too. Yes, that's right, you need another theological term known as 'flip-flop' Sunday School, where you have both a worship service and Sunday School at the same time, and then the next session, you 'flip-flop', do it again, encouraging those in worship to go to SS, and those in SS to head to worship. I know it's harder. But if you want to grow, it is also more effective.

I'll share some more thoughts on competing philosophies of ministry in the future.

Until later,
Dr. Bill

Coaching for Commitment

When you are coaching people, it is your job as the coach to help them develop crystal clarity as to their action plans. If they leave the meeting not quite sure of what they are going to do, the session was (almost) wasted.

Just finished a helpful book called "Coaching for Commitment" by Dennis Kinlaw. He makes this statement, "Ambivalence and confusion are the enemies of commitment" (Kinlaw, p. 11). People need to know what they are going to do before they can commit to it.

So he itemizes four ways to test a person's core values and commitments before the session is over:

1. Talk about the person's core values
It is what a person holds close to their heart which will impact future performance and behavior. What do they really value? That is what will get done. You as the coach want to check if their core values match their stated action plans. They may say that they are going to improve a particular program, but it will not happen unless they hold in high esteem the goals of that ministry or program.

2. Raise Real Problems
Talk about specific situations and ask how they would handle them. This gives you, and them, a better insight as to what is important to them.

3. Discuss Priorities
During your coaching sessions, raising up the issue of priorities, helps to surface internal values, by helping them to talk about what is important to them by comparing options. "Would you do this first, or that first?"

4. When a completed task fails to meet expectations
This is a good time to examine root values which may have led to the less than hoped for results. This is a great time to reveal values.

If a person has crystal clarity about what is important to them, and what are their highest values, or what they will never stand for, or what is the greatest good in their opinion, you will be able to help them fashion action plans which match their values and have the greatest chance of success.

This is one of your roles as a good coach.

Later,

Dr. Bill

THE TWO HALVES OF CHURCH GROWTH

Most people only focus on half of the church growth equation, and therefore get less than stellar results. If you can focus on both halves of church growth, you will see your attendance numbers rise.

Everybody knows, and focuses on getting more VISITORS to your church. People may do outreach programs of various types, or spend money on advertising, or developing such exciting events that the positive buzz just keeps new people crossing the threshold into your church. And that is all great and necessary and important. But that's only the first half of church growth.

The second part, is not about increasing the number of visitors that come to your church, but about increasing the FREQUENCY of attendance by your REGULARS. You see, for many Americans now, "regular attendance" means only 2 or 3 times a month. Some even view themselves as regulars if they show up once a month at the same church. In fact, in one article I read by Lyle Schaller, he stated that a large percentage of Americans consider two different churches to be their "church home". For example, they may go to one church for the preaching and worship service, and go to another church for the youth program. Yet both churches consider them to be 'regulars' and mark them as such on the rolls. And then each church wonders why their attendance is not any higher.

In one large suburban church where I served, the attendance was averaging about 800. But when I checked the database for a list of regulars, it came out to be 1200 people! So their entire consituency as a church numbered 1200, but they only had about 66% of that constituency show up at any one time. This brings a lot of wrinkles into program planning. That means that if you wanted to make an announcement that you wanted the entire church to hear, you had to make sure you stated it for two weeks, and thereby have a better chance of all your 'regulars' knowing what's going on.

So if more of your regulars show up at the same time - that is, if you increase the frequency of attendance - you will increase your average attendance. For example, if those other 33% of that suburban church were to show up every week, they would be running an average of 1200 instead of 800.

So how do you increase frequency? Here are a few ideas:
1. You have to increase ownership. You have to help everyone in your congregation to feel the importance of their attendance each week. First for their own sake. They need to grow spiritually. They need to meet with the Lord. They need to worship and praise and fill their lives with joy. They need to serve somewhere.

2. Teach in sermon series. Emphasize the connection of all the messages together. Give a little intro tease for next week's message, and explain why it is critical that they come back for more.

3. Sign more people up to serve more frequently. In many churches, when people are making sign up lists for services like ushers, communion servers, coffee preparers, cookie bakers, etc. they sign up a huge crew of people, so that people 'don't have to do too much'. So they get signed up for something like once every three months. That doesn't do much for encouraging frequency does it? But if you pare those lists down, you increase the frequency of times people must show up to fulfill their obligations, and then you help them to develop healthy habits.

We need to realize that as church leaders, as shepherds, we are here to care for the people. And that means helping them to "flee temptation". People are tempted by the world to do many other things each week, rather than worship. But the Lord commanded us to rest once every seven days and to come into His presence for worship and prayer. When we help people to develop healthy habits of service or attendance, we are enabling them to overcome the natural lethargy of the human condition and to make a commitment to something that is true and good and noble (Php.4:8).

And that is the real reason to pursue church growth. Numbers are a by-product of a healthy church of regular attenders who know how to worship.

In Christ,
Dr. Bill