Initial Reaction to 2 Services (Week 1)

Last Sunday we launched a 2nd worship service @ 9:00 am and changed the time of our original 10:30 service to 10:45 am. With only one week under our belt, here's our initial reaction & feedback:

--2 services did bring in more people. Our worship attendance grew in Week 1. We'll see how it continues.
--We were able to split the attendance about 40% @ 9:00 am and 60% at 10:45 am. We need more younger families with children to come to the 9:00 service ... hopefully that will happen in the coming weeks.
--2 services creates a buzz in the church and in the community.
--2 services has helped us involve more folks in ministry.
--2 services has created additional space for future growth.
--2 services is a challenge for the preacher who tries not to preach with notes. I felt like I cheated the 9:00 crowd because I was just so uncomfortable with the sermon for some reason. The 10:45 was better ... but I have to make sure I am ready to go for BOTH services!!
--2 services is a challenge for our band/muscians but they like to play so they ain't complaining ... yet.

--A lot of churches wait until they have to before they start an additional service (due to space issues). By watching our growth pattern the last 6 months and through much prayer, we added the new service before we had to and I think it did 2 things: 1) It kept us from stagnating due to the feeling that 'the service is full' and there is no more room and 2) It generated additional growth and acclerated our historical Fall growth trend.

--2 services has created some more 'Mo for us.
We did a big invitational evangelism push with our regular folks and through our small groups. We also did some street signs and newspaper ads. We hadn't planned on doing anything after the launch date, but to hopefully add more 'Mo we are keeping the street signs out and running another set of ads in our local paper. Plus, we hope the new guests come back and bring friends with them!!

All of this is new to us, but it is exciting. We'll see how things settle out in a few more weeks but after Week #1 ... I'm a big fan of multiple services (if I could only figure out to preach the same message twice!).