MINISTRY BY MULTIPLE CONGREGATIONS
How to make the divide-and-conquer approach work in a growing church.
Josh Hunt
October 1, 1991
We never planned it this way. We had no strategic plan to do seven church services each weekend. It just happened. But now the multi-congregational approach is an important part of who we are. Along the way, we learned a few things, some the hard way, about making it work.
Like many churches, we began to grow and ran out of space. So we started a second service. We continued to grow, and we ran out of space again. Instead of launching a construction project, we started yet another service.
On it went, until we reached seven weekend worship services: four on Sunday morning, one on Saturday night, and two on Sunday evening.
Is this the end? We don't know. As our church continues to grow, we may continue creating new congregations.
Many churches have more than one worship service. Except for the number, our approach wouldn't appear to be unique, except that (1) we have designed some services to appeal to some people but not others, and (2) in many ways we consider each service a fully functioning congregation. We follow the Willow Creek model of having two types of services-seeker services and believer services. The five Saturday night/Sunday morning meetings are for seekers, and the two services on Sunday night are for believers.
To put it another way, instead of worrying whether multiple services will divide an otherwise united congregation, we've begun to intentionally create multiple congregations. We don't expect all the staff or any one pastor to be at every service.
Recently, as I was reading the Book of Acts, I wondered if this wasn't merely a variation of what the early church did. After the thousands had been added to their number at Pentecost, "every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts."
I had always ...
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