[At our congregational meeting on December 3rd, 2023 I presented to the Evergreen congregation the session’s plans to begin holding two identical worship services each morning beginning in January of 2024. This is a big change for any church, and so the following article is a distillation of what was said in that congregational meeting in relation to the move to two services.]
The Evergreen session met on November 1st and had an extensive discussion and time of prayer. One of the great needs and passions that has been growing in the hearts of the session members has been a desire for each of us as elders, and all of us as church members to be people who are personally more readily and eagerly sharing the gospel. We want to be more eager and encouraging about creating a culture at this church of all its members engaging in personal evangelism.
During one part of our meeting, it occurred to one elder that the children’s catechism that his son had just learned might present us with just what we were looking for to articulate the great need for evangelism at Evergreen. And so on the spot he called up his 9 year old son and asked him this question: “What does it mean to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come’?” Here is the answer we heard from a nine year old child on speakerphone: “We are asking God to bring more and more people to hear, believe and obey his gospel.”
The session was immediately convinced that this was to be Evergreen’s theme for 2024: “Thy Kingdom Come: That More People Would Hear, Believe, and Obey His Gospel.”
A Church Inviting People to Come
What will this look like to be a church that lives out this theme “Thy Kingdom Come” in action? It will look like a church that is pro-active about doing evangelism. Historically there have been two kinds of evangelism methods that most Christians in America are used to. One of those is cold-call evangelism. This is the sort of thing you may have tried in the past, or you may have been subjected to in the past, where you knock on someone’s door and invite them to church.
Another kind of evangelism is “Program-centered” or “event-centered” evangelism where we put on an event at the church and hope that it will draw people to come in.
We as a session have discussed this and think that both of these methods are not the approaches that we will be encouraging for our church. This doesn’t mean that nobody was ever converted by a knock at the door or by coming to an event at a church, but it is to say that in our own day and age, neither of these are well received or welcome by those outside of the church. At least in the time and place where we live, there was never a time in all of human history when people were less excited to have a stranger knocking on their door.
And at least one issue with event evangelism is that it often drains the time and resources of a church, makes a church feel like it is doing a lot, does an excellent job of drawing those Christians who are already part of the church, and by and large they do very little for bringing in those who are not already convinced.
This does not mean that nobody was ever converted by these means in all of human history. But this at least means that we as a church will not be focusing on them in 2024.
The type of evangelism we will be encouraging in the coming year is what Tony Merida calls “Network Evangelism.” Rodney Stark, in his history of the early church points out that this was how the gospel spread early on in church history.
“Social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place… Most conversions are not produced by professional missionaries conveying a new message, but by rank-and-file members who share their faith with their friends and relatives… The principle that conversions spread through social networks is quite consistent with the fact that the earliest followers of Jesus shared many family ties and long-standing associations… Although the very first Christian converts in the West may have been by full-time missionaries, the conversion process soon became self-sustaining as new converts accepted the obligation to spread their faith and did so by missionizing their immediate circle of intimates.”
Churches grew as members personally shared Jesus with their neighbors. When the church in Jerusalem was scattered, those who went out shared the word where they went, according to Acts 8 and 11.
This approach of Network Evangelism recognizes that each of us has a network of relationships.
- Some of those relationships are familial.
- Some of them are geographic – people who live in your neighborhood.
- Some of them are vocational – people at your workplace.
- Some of them are recreational – people you hang out with.
- And some of these relationships are commercial – people who see you at stores and shops – your barber, your hairdresser, the guy who sells you records and comic books and so on.
We all have relationships. A network of relationships. And yet for some of us, we need to be encouraged to develop more relationships.
Others of us have tons of relationships, but we’re bashful about sharing the gospel or inviting the people we know to church. In that case, we need to be encouraged to share the gospel with the people we already know. Others of us think we don’t have many relationships and need to realize we know more people than we thought. We think this prodding is precisely what members and officers of Evergreen need.
And so in the coming year, we as a session will be working to develop a culture of evangelism here at Evergreen where we will be preaching, praying, conversing, and sharing with each other about the need to share Christ with the people in our lives who are not already walking with him. To do that, we’ll be giving out resources (much like we did with family worship in 2023), we’ll be teaching, preaching, and speaking in such a way that we want to see the whole cultural attitude here at Evergreen shift.
Instead of having an inward-facing self-protective posture, we think it is more obedient to the great commission for every member of Evergreen to be nudged, reminded, equipped, and encouraged to be praying for the people we know, inviting them, serving them, giving them resources, and yes sharing the good news of Christ with them.
We know from current statistics and from the history of the early church especially that the vast majority of people who start coming to church come because someone they know invited them. In fact, 51% of dechurched evangelicals said they would be willing to return to church if they had a friend who went to that church, or if they were at least invited back by someone they know (The Great Dechurching, Davis, p. 28)
And so our plan in the coming year is to tear down those excuses we might give, to push back on the reasons we might be holding back on sharing Christ, and to see our church culture shift into a different attitude where every member (no matter their age) is surrounded by an atmosphere of expectation that they will always have two to four people in mind, where we are praying for them, sharing literature with them, and bringing them to church.
This is not a program, it is not some kind of scheduled event, but it is meant to be a whole cultural attitude shift here among us. Now, let’s say some of you love the idea of going door to door. You can still do that, especially if you have a gift for that. But what we’re not doing, as a church, is creating a program or prescribing how we’re going to live these things out.
Instead, some of you may decide you want to evangelize one way, and someone might evangelize another way. The point is, there are a diverse number of ways these things can be done, each in keeping with our various gifts.
Our hope as a session is that the church itself is emanating this commitment to evangelism and love of the Gospel. We are committed to equipping you as the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12), at which point each of us are going out and seeing ourselves as “sent ones” wherever we find ourselves.
What I hope in the coming year is that God, through the ministry of the word in this church, will convict and convince all of us that this is our calling… that God will convince you that this way of living is worth it, and to see more and more people come to know Jesus because all of us are opening our lives, opening our homes, and opening our church to inviting others in.
In practice, this means we, as a church, need to be ready for visitors. It means we should expect Visitors. It also means that just because someone is here we don’t assume that they are already Christians. One small change in the way we talk could be this: instead of asking a visitor, “When did you first become a Christian?” we can ask a question like, “Are you a Christian?” Something like that communicates to them that if they’re here and aren’t a Christian yet, that’s okay. It tells them that we expect them.
I want to talk a moment about motivations; listen to this verse. In Philemon 6 Paul prays “that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.”
In other words, Paul is saying that when we share our faith, it grows our own hearts and sanctifies us even more. Our faith is not yet mature, and our knowledge of God in Christ is not full until we share Jesus with others. It’s not just for the good of others that we share the gospel. But it’s also good for us. By sharing our faith, we will know Christ better and better. That’s not just me being a cheerleader: that’s God himself through Paul telling you that it’s the case.
Expect more from me and from the session in the coming year on this topic of Network Evangelism.
And so as the year moves along, we will talk more and more about what this looks like. But this is a drum we plan on beating in 2024. But this leads to a new and important question: if we believe God will be faithful and answer the preaching of his word, how can we be ready when more people come to Evergreen?
A Church That Needs More Room
The session here now keeps a close and accurate roll of the church. And as of today we have approximately 180 members on the rolls here at Evergreen. Our attendance here varies each week from 130 some weeks all the way up to 165 at times like Easter. But at 150 attendance, we are already facilities constrained. Even today, we had 150 in worship, and this room felt quite tight. When I say “facilities constrained” I mean that people feel like the room is too full for them and their families, and especially too full for more visitors.
Here’s the thing: by God’s grace, we have continued to add families, and have a steady stream of visitors, many of whom are even now in the process of becoming members. We are also not really losing families except for a few who happen move out of the area.
All it would take is a slight bump in membership and attendance over the course of a few Sundays for Evergreen to be too full for us to feel good about inviting more people. Now, I doubt that any of us would say, “I won’t invite someone to church because my church feels so full.”
I think many of us would agree that current seating is already incredibly tight, even when not pushing against capacity. That’s awesome. We love it. We sing that hymn that says, “We long to see Thy churches full/That all the chosen race/May with one voice and heart and soul/Sing Thy redeeming grace.” And if we mean it, then all of us are excited to see this church full.
This presents us with a sweet and wonderful challenge that we have to address. A tightly packed room sends an unintended and unspoken message to visitors. And that message is, “we have enough already.” And so the session’s plan for 2024 is twofold: encourage evangelism in conjunction with making more room.
A Church With Room For Those Who Come
How will we make more room? We will begin having two identical worship services each Sunday starting next month, on January 7th, 2024.
Every Sunday we will have an early Service 9:00-10:15.
There will then be a 15 minute break, after which adult and children Sunday School will be held from 10:30-11:10.
Now, this is very important: for the adults we will use the last 10 minutes of Sunday School to cover church announcements and as a reminder to everyone present to pick up after themselves, pick up their cups from the Lord’s Supper, and to prepare for the second group that will be coming in shortly after.
After Sunday School we will have about ten minutes to visit, to mill about, to finish drinking our coffee, and then for those from the first service to move out of the sanctuary so that the second Service can begin at 11:30, and then end at 12:45pm.
So 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30 will be our new Sunday pattern.
One of the most noticeable things you might see is that the services themselves will – by design – be shorter by 15 minutes. No more announcements during the service; we will sing one fewer song; and we will be condensing our catechism reading as well. Our desire as a session is for the sermons to stay the same length, and for the elders not to feel like they have to rush through the service when they are leading. By removing some items from our worship order we think we will be able to make room for two services and Sunday School on Sundays.
Now, there is something in this that will be missed. And that is the time to talk after the first service. There just won’t be as much time for visiting if Sunday School and another service is rolling up on us.
If I can be really frank, for many people, the personal connection and time to visit after church is a prime feature of Evergreen. Sometimes people stick around as long as an hour after worship most Sundays. If your favorite thing about Evergreen is taking our time after worship, visiting extensively, and just being around each other to visit after church, then coming to the first service then Sunday School is going to drive you crazy. Because there won’t be enough time between church and Sunday School, and you’ll probably be a little annoyed.
For our extroverts, I feel confident that coming to Sunday School and then the second service is going to be the right pattern for you and your family. Because after the first service, we’re going to have to be efficient and usher people out. And if that feels like a problem, it’s a surefire sign that you belong at the second service. Because after the second service, there will be no rush and we can all take as much time as we want after worship.
What does that mean for our Monthly Fellowship Meal that we currently have after church? That’s going to be moved to an evening time at 4:45pm on the second Sunday of each month. This meal will have an even more important function than it had before: The fellowship meal gets the folks from both services together to share a meal and catch up. It’s a reminder that we are still the same church, even if our worship services take place during two separate times.
Remember: why would we go to all of this trouble? Some of you may think this is wonderful. Some of you may not feel so good about it. What’s our motivator? Again: it’s because with this change we will now have two services that offer room to invite others and it allows for Evergreen’s future growth. We will not wait for the growth, we will make room for the growth.
This is the important message I want you to hear: that when you invite friends and family, we will have room for them. As we evangelize we will be able to receive the ones we are sharing the gospel with, but we can’t do this without splitting to two services.
Additional Questions:
Q: We have grown accustomed to having snacks and coffee after church but before Sunday School. Will that continue?
A: Snacks after church have been a help to motivating and encouraging families to stay for Sunday School. However, with shorter services that are closer together and the need to keep the sanctuary clean for the second services, we will only be offering drink refreshments just prior to the Sunday School time.
Q: What are the long-term plans for Evergreen with regard to the number of services? Should we expect that there will always be two services at Evergreen?
A: Everything we say here assumes that the Lord brings growth – something that we would never presume upon the Lord for. However, it’s always important to know what we believe a faithful response to the Lord’s bringing growth ought to be.
Evergreen was originally established as a church that was intended to produce other church plants in the Oregon area. Evergreen has planted numerous times before, and we don’t want to abandon that long-term vision. However, we think Evergreen needs to have higher membership than it did in the past by the time it planted. In the long-term we want to still be a church that plants other churches. This means that if we grew to a certain size, planted, and found our membership to be low enough we would be open to contracting to one service. Without a larger building, however, the goal would be to have enough members in the future that we could once again plant. This would imply returning to two services again. The session is realistic that this church, if we’re faithful to plant in the future (once we reach a certain size threshold) would again need go back to two services if we found ourselves facilities constrained. There is no way (short of expanding our current building) to avoid two services if we are faithful and God continues to bring growth.
Q: What will the Sunday pattern be during the times when Sunday School isn’t taking place? If we don’t have Sunday School during the summer will service times change?
A: During the times of the year when Sunday School isn’t happening (usually during winter and summer breaks), we will stick to this set pattern (9:00am and 11:30am worship services). The space between services will just be longer. We think it is very important that we not deviate from the set worship service times, and that people learn that worship at Evergreen will predictably and consistently be at 9:00 and 11:30, no matter what is happening with Sunday School.
Q: What exactly are the ways that congregants can serve at Evergreen?
A: While some areas need more volunteers at different times than others, it’s good for congregants to know the overall ways that they can serve the body of Christ. Here are some of the various ways that Evergreen members can serve:
- Female Nursery Volunteers
- Greeters
- Audio Technicians
- Coffee Prep
- Evening Fellowship Meal Set-up
- Property Cleanup/Maintenance
- Tenebrae/Lessons and Carols Choir
- Musicians
- Sunday School Teachers
If you are interested in serving in any of these ways, contact the Evergreen deacons at epc_deacons@evergreenpca.com.