Getting My Comeuppance
The church on whose staff I serve has a Sunday schedule that can be demanding on our pastoral staff. It's two services in the morning and two services in the evening, all identical, and all designed in such a way that our church family can attend one service for worship and either serve the next service or grab another opportunity in our Christian education department.
Basically, what that means is that the average churchgoer comes to either the morning "block" OR the evening "block." Hence, they either sleep in our get the evening to themselves depending on their preference.
The reality is that, as staff, we're there the whole time...plus the hour early and hour late, and suffice to say it's a full day in every sense of the word. I'm not complaining, mind you...just giving you some background that Sunday is a full day for us, and to get a portion of it off is like gold.
Staff meeting in early fall.
Youth pastor brings up the idea that when we had Sunday on July 4 nobody came to the evening services and it was really a waste of resources to have so many volunteers and staff and electricity and musicians and singers and board ops and all that jazz for so few people. Youth pastor suggests that since the same kind of thing is taking place on Halloween in a couple of months that maybe we should just cancel the evening block of services on October 31. And, oh yeah, why not on December 26th when we just had 4 Christmas Eve services two days before?
The decision was made to run a normal set of services on October 31. Youth pastor was RIGHT, baby! Lots of resources were wasted. Few came, and even fewer children. Vindication!
Maybe I should bring up Christmas again. Discussion at that staff meeting tabled until right before Thanksgiving so everybody could think about it. Decision is made to run the full-schedule on December 26th.
Christmas Eve services were packed to the gills. Standing room only at the first two, and about 60 percent capacity at the last two...and those numbers add up to about 70% full overall. I'm thinking nobody shows up on the 26th. Looking forward to even more vindication!
Stroll into church yesterday with a smirk of self-importance.
Thinking in my brain about what OTHER days we should cancel night services!
Super Bowl?!
Oscar Night?!
Memorial Day?!
Well, thanks to the good folks at Crossroads Bible Church, who apparently love each other and care about each other enough to come up twice on a weekend and attended on almost a 70% rate yesterday...
...if you need me, I'll be joyfully serving and working all four services until the Rapture.
Why am I continually surprised by the wonderful congregation I'm involved with?
The church on whose staff I serve has a Sunday schedule that can be demanding on our pastoral staff. It's two services in the morning and two services in the evening, all identical, and all designed in such a way that our church family can attend one service for worship and either serve the next service or grab another opportunity in our Christian education department.
Basically, what that means is that the average churchgoer comes to either the morning "block" OR the evening "block." Hence, they either sleep in our get the evening to themselves depending on their preference.
The reality is that, as staff, we're there the whole time...plus the hour early and hour late, and suffice to say it's a full day in every sense of the word. I'm not complaining, mind you...just giving you some background that Sunday is a full day for us, and to get a portion of it off is like gold.
Staff meeting in early fall.
Youth pastor brings up the idea that when we had Sunday on July 4 nobody came to the evening services and it was really a waste of resources to have so many volunteers and staff and electricity and musicians and singers and board ops and all that jazz for so few people. Youth pastor suggests that since the same kind of thing is taking place on Halloween in a couple of months that maybe we should just cancel the evening block of services on October 31. And, oh yeah, why not on December 26th when we just had 4 Christmas Eve services two days before?
The decision was made to run a normal set of services on October 31. Youth pastor was RIGHT, baby! Lots of resources were wasted. Few came, and even fewer children. Vindication!
Maybe I should bring up Christmas again. Discussion at that staff meeting tabled until right before Thanksgiving so everybody could think about it. Decision is made to run the full-schedule on December 26th.
Christmas Eve services were packed to the gills. Standing room only at the first two, and about 60 percent capacity at the last two...and those numbers add up to about 70% full overall. I'm thinking nobody shows up on the 26th. Looking forward to even more vindication!
Stroll into church yesterday with a smirk of self-importance.
Thinking in my brain about what OTHER days we should cancel night services!
Super Bowl?!
Oscar Night?!
Memorial Day?!
Well, thanks to the good folks at Crossroads Bible Church, who apparently love each other and care about each other enough to come up twice on a weekend and attended on almost a 70% rate yesterday...
...if you need me, I'll be joyfully serving and working all four services until the Rapture.
Why am I continually surprised by the wonderful congregation I'm involved with?
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