i think pretty much every church deals with this issue….
two sunday’s ago we went for something different and opened up the service with a solo voice, a capella rendition of “o come emmanuel” followed by a scripture reading and a stripped down acoustic worship set.
the problem that we knew we had to account for in our programming is that typically there are still people coming in at 10 or 15 minutes into the service. and not just a few. lots. (actually, we ended up adding a 2.5 min video to the beginning just to pad it a little…)
in one sense, it’s a good thing. there’s always a good amount of community happening in the lobby and cafe area. i think people tend to wait until they hear the music start up before they wrap up their conversation and head inside the auditorium. this generally isn’t AS noticeable because we typically start with one or two upbeat songs - it’s easy to slip in without feeling like you’re going to disrupt anything.
but, more than a few times, we as a programming team have felt as though we’ve settled for less than our ideal service order because of this issue. there are weeks that we start the service with less than 50% of people in the room. how can we start into thematic content that half the people won’t get?
so….
do we just accept this as a reality and continue to program around it, making sure that we don’t “waste” the good stuff by putting it in the first 10 minutes?
or do we do the opposite - is it possible to train our crowd to get there on time by occasionally front-loading the service with thematic content?
i’m really open to thoughts from anyone on this….
fellow worship pastors and programming directors?
crosspointe “late comers”? *smile*
crosspointe “on-timers”? *thumbs up*
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December 18, 2007 at 9:47 am
Owen
One approach I’ve seen is to sometimes start the service with the message, just to shake things up a little. For some reason many people seem to think that the message is what the service is all about, and the music and worship is the intro or something. But maybe that idea is a little extreme.
As parents with a new baby, we’ve also found the large number of people arriving late to be an issue when trying to sit in the back row - it’s so distracting having people walking in front of you, long into the service. Our solution is to sit further forward, but I’m not sure what the solution for the programming team is.
December 18, 2007 at 11:10 am
bluedevildad
What about taking down names of people who are hanging out in the lobby? Or feeding the video of the latecomers into the main service? A public scolding from the stage?
We noticed this alot lately - and I think you hit on it partly - we see people who are just excited to be connecting in the lobby area. But it does make it unfortunate when, like this week, we kicked off the day with a huge element that is intended to help the next 2 weeks make sense.
December 18, 2007 at 12:05 pm
onelouder
public scolding? i’m not sure that burning people is the answer, jon….
December 19, 2007 at 8:54 pm
mytwocents
I think that what you did two Sunday’s ago was very moving and was an awesome way to start the service. I would love to see changes to the “norm” more often. I don’t mean to be harse but if people miss the good stuff because they were fellowshipping in the lobby then perhaps they will come in on the time from now on and if not…I mean I just don’t think that the people who are in the sactuary when the service starts should miss how the spirit may be promoting you to start a service because 50% of the people aren’t in there on time.
December 19, 2007 at 11:54 pm
onelouder
good point about the people who are on time suffering because of the people who aren’t.
December 23, 2007 at 9:43 am
Dave
How about we start with a lead-in song appropriate for the tone of the message, then the ushers close the doors and only allow late comers in during connect time, which is usually 5-10 minutes in? Perhaps not the most all-embracing, but would be a minor affront to most, yet allow us to preserve the intended mood of the individual service. It would need to be “advertized” by way of weekly announcements/reasoning, posting in the “bullegram”, and via the weekly email.