Want to be Missional? Move.
For all of the church’s talk of “being on mission,” “living sent,” and “pursuing a Great Commission lifestyle,” I fear we may be overlooking one of the easiest ways to get the gospel into the hands of people.
Recently our strategic development team crunched some numbers from our weekend services for the year-to-date, and the results were fascinating. (Warning: the following contains numbers and stuff, so if you’re math-averse like me, you may want to grab your emotional support animal before continuing.)
Got your llama? Good. Here’s what our team discovered:
- On an average weekend across the entire church, 80% of our worship attendance happens on Sunday; the other 20% on Saturday (only four of our ten campuses have Saturday services).
- As we have tracked professions of faith this year, only 12% of responses came on Saturday. The other 88% were on Sunday.
- Out of the Sunday morning professions of faith, 35% happened at the first (9:00) service, and 65% happened at the second (10:45) service.
This may be obvious, but our most-attended service at any campus is the 10:45. If there is going to a full house, it’ll be then. If there are additional seats set up in the lobby, it’ll be then. If people are going to be turned away, it’ll be then.
What do those stats and anecdotes mean? They mean that when we run out of room at 10:45, we are likely turning away people who need to hear the gospel.
That’s why “living sent” can mean simply moving to a different service. The shortest mission trip we’ll ever take is from 10:45 to 9:00. We’re checking our comfort at the door in order for others to be comforted by the gospel.
Special thanks to Rick Langston for providing the data!
