Soulrio Church

After much prayer and consideration, SoulRio is seeking God’s will about the possibility of adding a second service on Sunday mornings.  This decision has not been made lightly, nor has it been finalized as of this writing.  We wanted to take a moment to reflect on the challenges of making this move, as well as the advantages that it may offer.

 As a general rule of thumb, church planners use an “80% rule.”  Simply stated, most church planners believe that once a church service reaches 80% of capacity, growth becomes limited.  Once that capacity has been exceeded (on a regular basis), visitors see the building as “full” and that there will be “not enough room” for them or their children.  Granted, even though there are seats available, they are not welcoming to someone who has never visited Soul Rio, and perhaps even less so to someone who is just “kicking the tires” and trying to find out exactly where they are in relationship to God and faith.  Imagine if you will arriving at a church for the first time.  You don’t know anyone.  You are warmly greeted, your children are shown to a class, you are offered a bagel and a cup of coffee and escorted to a comfortable seat.  People introduce themselves to you and are genuinely interested in YOU.  Even if you are shy beyond measure, you would feel welcomed and valued.  You would want to get to know this body of believers and find out more about them and why they are like they are.  Now, turn that around.  Maybe you slipped by the greeter in the parking lot.  The Children’s Church check-in was backed up and there were people who made eye contact with you and smiled, but didn’t get a chance say hello.  You walk into a church, hear joyous worship in a room full of people who are obviously in love with Jesus, but the only available chairs for you and your family are way up in the front row.  Or not together.  Or you might have to step around someone already sitting on the aisle.  Or you had to drive around the parking lot a couple of times to find a space.  You might just feel like there wasn’t any room at the inn for you.  That everyone in this place was so well established, so connected with everyone else, that you just couldn’t be a part of that—that you wouldn’t be welcome.  We want everyone to feel welcome, at home, wanted and valued when they walk in the doors of SoulRio.  We believe that by going to two services, this may be a way to make that more possible all the way around.  Studies have shown that when church attendance is at about 57% capacity level, (no matter what the fire marshal says), growth levels off.  However, once that space is opened up, and that barrier is broken, there is a dramatic increase in membership.  SoulRio has never been about the building or the numbers.  But we want to reach as many people as we can for Jesus!  We believe that by opening up a second service, we are being good stewards of all God has given us!

 There will definitely be challenges associated with two services.  One of the hardest things will be that, depending on the service you attend, you won’t be able to see and worship with everyone.  We plan to offset that by setting aside time in between services for fellowship, and offering more Worship Night services such as the one we held in August, where we ‘packed out the house.’  In Matthew 9:37, Jesus says “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”  By offering two services, we believe that we will grow up more “workers.”  Knowing that you will be able to attend one service with your family, and then serve in the other, will free up more people to work in areas such as children’s, café, usher/greeter and the like.  We are taking steps to make sure that we have adequate and willing servants in place before we make this move.  One of these steps has been to take a poll of everyone who comes, to see what service they intend to attend and when and where they will serve.  Overwhelmingly, the response to this has been positive.  Since moving into this building last November, our intention has been to grow and reach out to more and more people.  We’ve spoken about expanding to two services numerous times, most recently at the Family Meeting that we held in August where all were invited to attend.  All in all, as we went before the Lord in prayer, we found that there are many more advantages to disadvantages, and we are choosing to look upon those as opportunities for God to shine.  The Great Commission should set our hearts afire with a passion to reach more and more unchurched and unsaved people.  We are a body of people passionately in love with God.  He asks us to share Him with everyone we meet.  You have never met the eyes of someone that Jesus didn’t die for.  Let’s allow God’s glory to shine!  Let’s open up the gates!

REF:

http://www.crosscreekchurch.org/PDFs/80PercentRule.PDF