Grace Church to Add THIRD Worship Service

We have been so blessed by God and it has been so exciting to see how God is growing Grace Church. Over the 2003-2004 fiscal year, we averaged 711 on Sunday mornings. This average has risen each year to the most recent 2007-2008 fiscal year average of 1,252 , which is a 76% increase or an average of nearly a 20% growth rate each year. During the 2003-2004 fiscal year we only had 3 Sundays all year long over 1,000 in attendance and there were no Sundays over 1,100 or higher. Compare that to the past 2007-2008 fiscal year where we were over 1,000 in attendance every Sunday of the year. On top of that, we were over 1,100 on 47 weeks; over 1,200 on 35 Sundays; over 1,300 on 13 Sundays; over 1,400 on 5 Sundays; and we even topped 2,000 once.

Now why do I share all of these statistics with you? The rule of thumb is that when a church is filling 80% of its seating capacity that its growth rate slows down. That means that to avoid losing momentum, a church needs to add an additional worship service prior to that 80% mark. We have a maximum seating capacity in our auditorium of 800. That means that over two worship services we can seat 1,600 people, 80% of that would be 1,280. As I noted above, we averaged 1,252 on Sunday mornings last fiscal year. That means that on the average we are filling 78% of our seating capacity. Now if you are a regular on Sundays here at Grace you realize that when you walk into the back of the auditorium at the start of the service it looks absolutely packed. If you add to this even the most conservative of increases over the next fiscal year and we will be well over the 80% mark when it comes to auditorium seating capacity.

As a result, we believe that now is the time to act. So beginning in October, we will be adding a third Sunday morning worship service on a weekly basis here at Grace Church. This will give us a total seating capacity of 2,400 and allow us plenty of room to continue to grow. In order to facilitate this growth we will be shortening our worship service by 10 minutes. Currently our Sunday morning services are 75 minutes in length. Beginning in October they will be reduced to 65 minutes and the time in between services will also be shortened from 30 minutes to 25 minutes. Our service times will be 8:30; 10:00; and 11:30. The schedule for the morning would be as follows:

8:30-9:35 First Service
10:00-11:05 Second Service
11:30-12:35 Third Service

All three services will be identical and will have a full nursery and children’s program. During the month of August we will be communicating all of the details to this step of growth as it relates to other areas such as our Youth Group and Adult Bible Fellowship Classes. We will use the month of September to communicate this news outside of our church along with many other exciting elements that are also planned for October. Please be praying for God to use this exciting step to help us become even more effective at meeting people where they are and moving them to where He wants them to be!