Multiple Sunday Worship Services

Calvary has offered multiple Sunday worship services for quite some time now.  Over the last year this has consisted of an early classic style service in English, two mid-morning contemporary style services in English and one mid-day contemporary style Spanish language service.  Recently some have asked whether the two contemporary style services should be combined.  The reasons for this inquiry may be varied but they can be narrowed down to a couple of primary reasons.  Some wonder if the attendance numbers justify having two contemporary services.  They wonder if combining them would provide a greater sense of unity to a "spread out" congregation or if combining them would provide a greater sense of energy and enthusiasm in worship.  Others are hoping that this kind of change would move the classic service to a later hour.

After much thought, prayer and consideration, as lead pastor, in agreement with the rest of the pastoral staff, I have decided that we will not change the times and worship/language style for our Sunday morning worship services in the near future.  Below are the reasons for such a decision.

We must keep in mind that the reason for having multiple services is to reach as many people as possible.  We believe that when people can sense God's presence in worship, feel his love through people and hear the message of the gospel we are being faithful stewards of the gift of salvation.  For us at Calvary McAllen, that means we need to provide at least three things in regard to our worship services:  (1) worship style preference; (2) language preference (English and Spanish); and (3) space for growth.  That is why we provide a classic style service in English which combines hymns and contemporary songs with a choir and an orchestra, contemporary style services in English which use mostly contemporary songs with a praise band, and a contemporary style service in Spanish which uses a latin-flavored praise band.

The early service has had an attendance of around 200 for several years and it continues to have that.  The 9:45 am service has fluctuated around 300 for the last couple of years and is currently averaging below that level.  The 11:15 am service has had between 200 and 250 over the last couple of years and that trend remains today.  The Spanish service has gone from having under 100 in average attendance two years ago to having about an average of 140 last year.  It is averaging more recently around 240.

It is readily apparent that our Spanish service is the fastest growing service and that the current time allotted is working well.  If it continues to grow at that rate, at some point in the future, we may need to consider multiple Spanish services and/or a change in the service times.  However, for now, it is working well and we will continue to leave it as is.

The contemporary services have a combined attendance that is usually below 500.  However, in the present calendar year, there have been five Sundays where the combined attendance reached close to 600.  Since the seating capacity for our worship center is about 650, including the balcony, this represents a combined attendance of almost 90%.  In other words, if we were to combine both contemporary services and have more Sundays like those five, we would not leave enough room for growth.  The population growth in Hidalgo County is projected to be at almost 14% over the next five years, which is almost triple that of the national projected growth.  We need to make room for the people that God wants us to reach with his love and his message.  We need to pray and be about sharing the gospel so that the Lord will bring the harvest he has in store for us.

According to recent demographic studies, the largest age group segment in our area is that of ages 9 through 28 consisting of 33% of the total population compared to a national average of 28%.  We are a younger county than most of the nation in terms of population age.  This means that we are going to be effective in reaching those in our county, we need to provide services that are relevant to youth & young adults (and their children).  Of course, we desire to be a church for all people of all ages.  It is important that we minister to median and senior adults also.

Although there are always exceptions, generally the classic style of worship is preferred by older adults and generally they prefer early hour services.  In the same way, in spite of notable exceptions, we assume that generally the contemporary style of worship is preferred by younger and median adults and that they generally prefer later hour services.

For these reasons, we feel like the current provision of an 8:15 am classic service in English,  9:45 am and 11:15 am contemporary services in English and a 12:45 pm service in Spanish are the best way to provide for our current congregation and for the population that we are trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What remains now is to pray and witness so that we can see the harvest of people that we want God to send to us.

FAITH, EE & Personal Evangelism

For many years Calvary has used the FAITH program as its primary personal evangelism strategy.  This program has had much success in training people to share their faith and in winning many people to Christ. There have been times in the past when FAITH involvement consisted of close to 15 evangelistic teams going out every Tuesday night.

About a year ago, our Spanish Language Ministry went through the FAITH training and began to form teams.  In the process, Pastor Rolando Aguirre felt that Evangelism Explosion (EE) was a better fit for the context of our SLM than FAITH.  So they began to use the EE strategy.  Nevertheless, FAITH (English) teams and EE (Spanish) teams met at the same time each Tuesday, shared a meal, received assignments, went out to visit and returned to report and celebrate.  During this year, the EE (Spanish) teams have grown to nine.  We praise God for this rapid multiplication!

During this same period FAITH (English) leader and learner participation has diminished to the point that there were not enough teams to be able to do the fall 2010 semester.  While we can conjecture on the various reasons why this might have happened, we think it is more important to see this as an opportunity to refine our evangelism and discipleship strategy.

I personally see the principles of the FAITH program to be:

•  personal evangelism
• training of others
• multiplication
• accountability
• celebration
• connection of new believers with a small group as an objective
• fixed day & time

Of these, the fixed day & time can sometime be an obstacle for those who wish to be involved in personal evangelism and it also may not be the best time to find those prospects that we are seeking to visit.

In the meantime, we are implementing an alternative strategy we are calling the "Building Bridges Initiative" for now.  This initiative seeks to retain all of the principles of the FAITH program with the exception of the fixed day & time.  The Building Bridges Initiative will seek to involve individuals from the congregation through their Bible Fellowships in contacting prospects in order to develop a relationship with them, share the gospel and connect them to a small group.  The contacts may be done in a home, a coffee shop or a restaurant.  They will be done on the day and time that is most convenient for the team and for the prospect.  Furthermore, these contacts will seek to ensure a discipleship relationship that will continue after the person has made a decision to follow Christ.  This is an ambitious project.  For the time being, we are piloting the first part of this initiative through the pastoral staff and other former FAITH leaders.  Eventually, we will expand the involvement of teams and the kind of on-going discipleship that we would like to see take place.  The process of implementation of this will take at least one year.  So the plan for 2010 and 2011 is to implement the "Building Bridges Initiative" as the primary strategy for personal evangelism and, eventually, personal discipleship.

Whether it is FAITH, EE or "Building Bridges," I am glad that Calvary has a heart for personal evangelism and I am committed to encouraging and equipping leaders to do this in a more effective manner.

Affirm "Calvary en Español" as an expression of Calvary

As we have said before through various means (blog, deacons meeting, personnel, missions, & stewardship committees), we are affirming "Calvary en Español" as an expression of Calvary that will remain with us permanently.  That fact is that Calvary en español was not initially intended to be a “mission” or “church start” which would be sent off after reaching a certain size.  And, we remain committed to this intention as pastoral staff and leaders.


Calvary en español is a vital expression of who we are as Calvary as much as our children's ministry, youth ministry and worship style services are.


The next big step in affirming this is to move all of the Calvary en español's expenditures, also referred to as SLM (Spanish Language Ministry), from the missions budget to the church's general budget.  This includes personnel and ministry expenses.  Although this will reflect an increase in Calvary's budget, it must be noted that we are also projecting the revenues from SLM which have been going into a designated fund.  The effect is that the revenues will increase by approximately the same amount (according to the present pattern) that the expenses will increase resulting in basically a zero net difference.


There are other steps which need to be taken in the future in order to affirm this which have to do with the publication of documents in English and Spanish, the provision of language accessibility in business sessions and other meetings, and the inclusion of representatives from all four worship services in our committees and leader structure.


This is an exciting development in the life of Calvary as our SLM has doubled in size over the last year and as it has provided an army of volunteers for children's ministry, bread of life, angel food, block parties, worship, evangelism explosion and other areas of the church's ministry.

"I Am Calvary" Emphasis

The "I Am Calvary" emphasis has arrived.  We are in the second week of our 40 days of prayer that were leading up to it and we will begin the "I Am Calvary" sermon series this Sunday, Lord willing.  By way of our bulletin and our weekly prayer guides, we are providing demographic information about our congregation and community as well as information about ministries and mission endeavors that Calvary supports.

For this process, we have contracted Dr. Milfred Minatrea as a consultant.  Dr. Minatrea is the director of the missional church center and supplied the pulpit on numerous occasions during the lead pastor interim time.  He is the author of the book "Shaped by God's Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches."  I am also glad to count Milfred as a friend.  I believe his knowledge and experience will help us go through an assessment process that will be beneficial as we move to the next level of being a missional church.

The process will include a congregational survey prepared by Milfred and which will be distributed to the congregation over the next week online.  Hard copies will be made available for those who prefer not to do it online.

Additionally, there will be an "I Am Calvary" weekend on October 22-24.  This weekend will consist of an "I Am Calvary" dinner to which the entire church is invited.  This dinner will take place in the gym and it will consist of a beef or chicken barbecue plate.  The children and preschool will have their activity in the children's building while the youth and adults have their dinner in the gym.  During this dinner we will hear information and inspiration about what God is doing through Calvary and the opportunities which are before us.  On Saturday morning, we will invite a representative group of Calvary leaders for a workshop where we will talk about the process of becoming strategic as a missional church.  Although I would like to invite everyone who is a leader, it will be important to keep this group representative in order to facilitate the workshop format.  We will seek representation from all four worship services, from the various age groups and from the different ministries of the church.  Sunday, we will conclude with a worship celebration.  The Monday and Tuesday following, the pastoral staff will go on retreat with Milfred Minatrea to discuss the "what's next."

I hope that you, as a Calvary leader, will be in prayer and will encourage others to participate in the survey and in the "I Am Calvary" dinner.

We are looking forward to what God will show us during this process.

Follow up to Pastor's Coffee with Leaders

I want to thank all those of you who came to the pastor's coffee last Sunday night.  It was good to share with you the developments and to hear back from you about each of those items we discussed.  Below is some of the introductory information I presented.  This information provides some background for the direction in which hope to head.  I will list the other items we discussed as separate posts.  Most of these will be presented to the congregation this Sunday night (September 26 at 6:00 pm) as a "pastor's update."

Objective for this fall and spring: undergo spiritual preparation and congregational assessment that will lead to the development of a strategy.

Driving question in the process: how do we take being a missional church to the next level?

What is meant by being missional (Some book quotes):

“The Christian faith…is intrinsically missionary.  The Christian faith…sees ‘all generations of the earth’ as objects of God’s salvific will and plan of salvation…it regards the ‘reign of God’ which has come in Jesus Christ as intended for ‘all humanity.’  This dimension of the Christian faith is not an optional extra.”  David J. Bosch Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, 2006, p. 9

“We have come to see that mission is not merely an activity of the church.  Rather, mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation.  ‘Mission’ means ‘sending,’ and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God’s action in human history.”…“God’s mission is calling and sending us, the church of Jesus Christ, to be a missionary church in our own societies, in the cultures in which we find ourselves.  These cultures are no longer Christian…Now…their character as a mission field is so obvious as to need no demonstration.  The issue for the Christian church is its faithful response to this challenge.”  Darrell L. Guder Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, 1998, p. 4-6

From Milfred Minatrea, Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches, 2004

·    

·      P. 11, Differences between a mission-minded and missional church

Mission-minded                                    Missional

Sending & supporting                        being & doing

Representative                                    participative

One expression of its ministry            the essence of its existence

·      P. 12, Missional church definition

“A missional church is a reproducing community of authentic disciples, being equipped as missionaries sent by God, to live and proclaim his kingdom in their world.”

Pastor's Coffee with Calvary Leaders

Dear Calvary Leader,

            I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity God has given me to be Calvary’s lead pastor.  This week marks two months since I began this assignment.  During this time I have been able to get to know the staff, many of the deacons and several individuals in the congregation.  It is evident that God has blessed this church with wonderful, God-loving and committed people.  I have also been able to observe and study the church’s ministries, organization, and allocation of resources.  Though, I am still learning much, I have begun to make some decisions in consultation with the pastoral staff.  My intention is to continue to do assessment of the congregation that would lead to the developing of a shared vision for the congregation.  While this process will take some time, there are some actions steps that need to be taken now.  It is my desire to share some of this information with you as a leader so that you will be informed and also to hear your feedback about this.  For this reason, I am inviting you to a pastor’s coffee with Calvary leaders.  This meeting is by invitation only.  You will receive your invitation by e-mail.  However, if you know of an active key leader that you think should be invited, please let me know.  I want to be as inclusive as possible.  This pastor’s coffee with leaders will take place this Sunday, September 19 at 6:00 pm in the multi-purpose room.  Please confirm your participation by replying to the e-mail or by calling Kathleen at the church office.

            The topics of discussion include, identified strengths and areas of need, a framework for developing the vision of the church, the “I Am Calvary” assessment process and desired outcomes, the future of Calvary en español, the direction of the personal evangelism ministry, the decision about the multiple Sunday services, the strategy for evangelistic block parties (4^th of July and Noah’s Ark), and the focus on making disciples.  This is a lot of information but it will important to communicate it to you and have you speak to it.  I hope to see you there.

Prayerfully,

Julio Guarneri,

Calvary’s Lead Pastor