New Service Times Start Next Month

By Gary Keith, Lead Pastor 

The old adage says that “no one likes change except a baby,” but I know some babies that didn’t like to be changed either! Change is difficult, but it seems change is also a current cultural reality.

There has been a lot of change at LBF over the past year. Last August we embraced a new mission and vision statement. And in April we started the remodel of the Worship Center. For people who like to keep things the same, this has been a challenging year with a number of big changes. In fact, I would like to extend a big “thank you” to those of you who are having a difficult time with these changes. I know it is hard and I appreciate the fact that you are adjusting to something that is new and different. Thank you.

However, as I reflect back on this past year starting with the change of the mission statement, I believe our church has experienced a healthy growth, both in numbers and in our relationship with God.

So now that I’ve talked about change, let me talk more about the change this article is introducing. It revolves around the attendance patterns we currently see in our three Sunday morning worship services. Many years ago the third service was our largest-attended service. It was the service that was packed every week. Over the past several years though, we’ve seen a decline in third service attendance and a dramatic increase in second service attendance.

We’re excited to see second service packed out each week, but running at capacity is also an issue. Nearly every Sunday at second service, families are forced to split up to find seats. First-time guests to our church drive through our parking lots trying to find open spaces – sometimes in vain. This isn’t the experience we want for our attendees – especially those visiting our church for the first time.

A few months ago, in an effort to learn more about attendance patterns, we launched a church-wide survey to help us better understand the motivations behind why people choose the Sunday service they primarily attend. With a better understanding of service attendance motivations and patterns, we believed we would be able to create service times that work best for our congregation. If we could better balance and spread out our service attendance, we would be able to make room for more people to attend our church.

One of the key things we learned in the survey is that people choose the service that “allows them to maximize their day.” We learned that third service is starting – and getting out – too late and as a result, many are not attending because it doesn’t allow them to maximize their day. And because of the third service’s late start time, people choose second service, which is packing it to capacity. To state it another way, our third service starts and gets out too late for many people to see it as a viable service option.

With this information our pastoral staff discussed ways we can facilitate a growth in the other two Sunday services. We are thankful that our 9:30 service is more than full every week, but we would like to balance out the three services, thereby making room for growth at all of our services.

We know that the service you attend is important to you and that any change in the service times will have an impact on your personal life. We do not take lightly making a change in service times. But we believe we need to move third service to an earlier start time to help make it more viable for a majority of people who desire to go to a service that “allows me to maximize my day.”

So we are going to move the start time of third service from 11:11 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. This will allow third service to start earlier and end by noon. As a result, we are also moving the second service from 9:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. This change is needed to allow enough time for second service to wrap up before third service begins. First service will start at the same time – 8 a.m. Exit 83 Student Ministry (jr. high and high school) will meet at 9:15 a.m.

Below are the old and new start times for our three Sunday Services.
    Current Times        New Times 
    8 a.m.                        8 a.m.
    9:30 a.m.                   9:15 a.m.
   11:11 a.m.                 10:45 a.m.

We are very aware that this change may be difficult for some families. Change is rarely easy and even though we believe this is the best decision and these are the best service times for the majority of our congregation right now, we understand it will be a challenge for some. It’s our hope that you understand our motivations behind these changes, which is to create more viable service times for the whole of our congregation and to help create room for more people to attend all of services.

We will begin these new service times on Sunday, August 4. You will receive more communications and reminders as we get closer to this date. We look forward to this and believe it will be used to impact more people with the truth of the Gospel.