Important note: This is a work in progress. While we seek your input and covet your prayer cover, we do not yet have a Plan. It is likely that we ll do some of the things in this proposal. But this proposal has been changed many times already, and is likely to change again before we present it to the church. A multi-generational church with a next-generation ministry. In order to have the pleasure of sharing the message of Jesus with this community in years to come, we will develop an intentional plan of carrying out the Great Commission in this community that can be easily and quickly comprehended and communicated by every member and attender of our church. We will encourage our people to do these four things: Worship Come to worship. At least once a week, attend one of our two (or more) morning services. Serve At least once a week, find a place of service in our church. Grow Be a part of a small group of your peers, whether it s called a Sunday School class or a Small Group. Go Share Jesus wherever you go, every day. At least once a year, make an intentional effort to share the Gospel through a mission trip or through one of the ministries offered by our church. Our goal is simple. We want to build a church where our grandchildren can teach their children these principles of discipleship. If we focus on this future, we will find ourselves fulfilling the Great Commission. If we focus on the past, we will soon find ourselves without a future. 1
To reach the next generation of singles, single-parents and traditional families, we must make some changes in both scheduling and programming in order to maximize our efforts to fulfill our mission. This will change the way we do church. The most precious commodity for our members and attenders is time. No longer are people supporting every ministry of every church simply because the church offers a worship service, Bible study or missions project. Today s families are selective in what they do, when they do it, and who they do it with. We must maximize every opportunity to match our discipleship opportunities with the choices families are making. The main components of our church schedule revolve around an all-day Sunday schedule and our Wednesday evening schedule. We actually have activity on our campus every other day of the week, with precious few exceptions during an entire year. We are, without a doubt, an extremely active church! We do not have a need to change anything about our weekday scheduling of events. Those events are already afforded the luxury of flexibility and can change at will as each particular group sees fit. The cause for alarm in our church is that many of our traditional programs are seeing fewer and fewer people participating. The cause is not leadership in any of those programs, or even the quality of the material. In fact, the argument could be made that we have access to better material than we ever have, and our leaders have been pre-qualified like never before. We simply live in changing times. Our core group of older adults who once attended all of our programming faithfully is suffering from age-related attrition. Our younger adults are not attending all of our traditional programming, but they are still supporting our Sunday morning activities, and they are obviously deeply committed to the spiritual health of their children. Finding a way to merge our mission with a changing reality is the challenge before us. What follows is a proposed scheduling change that will allow us to meet more young families where they live. We would condense our schedule to match their condensed schedules. We would offer less to do more. We would engage many more of them in service, giving them more ownership of their church than they ve known in the past. We would inject some young adults back into our first service. And at the same time, we would give each small group (Sunday School class) in our church the option of participating in a new way, or continuing to experience life at Shirley Hills as they know it now. 2
Our current schedule Sundays 9 a.m. Sunday School for children, youth and many of our adults. Worship with a traditional style of music. 10:30 a.m. Sunday School for adults who were in the 9 a.m. worship service. Worship with a blended style of music, leaning toward contemporary. Our average Sunday-morning, all-program attendance is around 700 A proposed schedule Sundays 9 a.m. Sunday School youth and adults choosing to remain in our current Sunday School. First half of Children s Sunday programming, staffed by adults choosing to serve rather than attend Sunday School. Every component of our children s ministry focus will be featured during this nearly threehour block: Music, missions education, worship, Bible memory skills, Bible lessons, and missions application. Worship with a increasingly blended style of music. 10:30 a.m. Sunday School for adults choosing to remain in Sunday School. Second half of our Children s Sunday Programming, staffed by adults choosing to serve rather than attend Sunday School. Children may very well not realize that the programming has a two-part design. Instead, they will be engaged from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave. Worship with a continued blended style of music. 4-6 p.m. Programming and/or meetings offered for children, youth and adults. Children s programming includes missions education, Bible memory skills and children s choirs. Events are lightly attended. 6 p.m. Evening worship service, traditional in style. Attendance has dropped by 50% in 5 years. (Average, all-program attendance, 175) Wednesdays 5 p.m. Evening meal in the Fellowship Hall, (average participation, 75) 6:30 p.m. Children s programming, Youth-led worship service, multiple adult Bible studies, adult choir practice (average participation, 275) The church is open and available for any small group, special event and an occasional evening worship experience. As needed, the church would provide child care or even children s discipleship programming if adult small groups chose to meet at the church on Sunday evenings. However, all aspects of the children s programming are moved to the Sunday-morning time slot. The church would no longer offer an evening worship service as a standard part of our programming. Wednesdays 5 p.m. Evening meal in the Fellowship Hall 6 p.m. Lighter and far less expensive meal for children and youth. 6:30 p.m. Children s programming, Youth-led worship service, multiple adult Bible studies, adult choir practice 3
Children s programming We live in a community that values children s programming of the very highest quality. Our public school system is one of the most respected in the state, and the hands-down leader in Middle Georgia. Our youth sports programming is so successful, some parents assume the standard expectation is for their child to appear on ESPN before he or she reaches high school! When it comes to church life, parents in our community who choose to attend church are also accustomed to the very best in accommodations and programming. Our policies must loudly broadcast the message of security and quality teaching. Preferably, our buildings, playgrounds and other areas should be new. If not new, however, they must be clean and professionally decorated. This is not information that would surprise anyone, nor is it fodder for a theological condemnation of a new generation. It simply is what it is. If our parents get the very best for their children at school, at play and in the rest of the community, they naturally assume it will be a similar environment at church. However, all of that excellence in all parts of our community leads to a natural state of exhaustion by the end of the week. Sunday night participation in nearly anything is simply not possible for most families. Churches all around us have changed their Sunday evening programming options, some doing so more than a decade ago. It is obviously time for us to maximize our ministry on Sunday mornings, and leave Sunday evenings for some semblance of a Day of Rest. One of the most basic positive moves we can make is to move our older children s Sunday-morning programming to the Christian Life Center. This must not force our student ministry to move from the same building. However, the gym could be used for children s large-group activities. Adult classes currently in the CLC could move to a small group format, giving them the freedom to serve on Sunday mornings. When our second hour of worship begins, the entire CLC is available for children s ministry. A coordination of facilities could be one of the simplest things we do to further church growth. Our current children s building is maxed out for space considerations. It is also one of our three oldest buildings on campus. We could remodel it again, but no amount of remodeling would add the space we will soon need. Let us use the largest and newest building on our campus for what people expect from us: Excellence in children s and youth ministry. 4
Adult and youth small groups One of the common denominators of churches reaching the people we re not reaching is something called small groups. Small groups feature more interaction and fellowship than a traditional Sunday School class. In a world where Facebook and other social media are so popular, this should not surprise us. For students, we could develop small groups in homes on the Sunday nights of our choosing. Perhaps we d have a four-week stretch of a targeted study, a short break, and then a six-week stretch. Without the artificial every-sunday requirement, we can react more quickly to our own needs and opportunities. To be clear, our students would have both a Sunday School and a small-group option, plus another option for discipleship on Wednesday nights. Time would tell us which options are most fruitful for which purposes. Some of our adult classes will choose to serve on Sunday mornings and meet in small groups in order to serve on Sunday mornings. However, those who choose this option would still be encouraged to get involved in a small group. Fellowship with second graders is a great way to serve, but it does not connect adults with other adults, or lead to any sense of adult accountability. These serving adults must be connected with other adults for Bible study and fellowship. Adult small groups would be responsible for when and where they meet. They can meet in homes. They can meet at the church. They can meet at neutral sites, like restaurants. If childcare is a challenge, we can help meet that challenge on Sunday and Wednesday nights. No small group could form without a leader who goes through small-group training from our staff. Small groups are not just another cookout disguised as a Bible study. They have specific purposes and need to have specific ingredients. We would anticipate that most of our older adult Sunday School classes will elect to remain just as they are. As other churches have successfully done, we can offer targeted Bible studies (on handling finances, relationships, spiritual discipline, etc.) either through classes offered at the church as we do now or for the small groups meeting in homes. Even the Sunday School classes could have an option of using this material for short seasons of time. 5
Opportunities to serve We already have one of the most active and hard-working churches one could find anywhere. Serving others is truly at the heart of what we do. When people become disconnected they re usually not serving, and not in a small-group environment. They re only attending worship services. The message and impetus to serve must be an across-the-board effort for every part of our church, starting with the children s department, and extending all the way to our oldest members. Our message to new believers and/or new members of our church family is that we expect everyone to find a place of service. At some point during the week, each person would do something that qualifies as service through the ministries of our church. Some, but certainly not all, of the service opportunities would include: Joining or leading a Deaconled family ministry team. Teaching a Sunday School class. Leading a small group. Hosting a small group in one s home. Playing a musical instrument during a worship service. Singing in a choir. Greeting people outside our buildings. Greeting people inside our buildings. Handing out worship bulletins. Preparing the church newsletter. Helping with landscaping needs. Preparing a light meal for children and youth on Wednesday nights. Setting up the stage and/or temporary decorations in the CLC gym for our children s morning events. Leading youth small groups. Volunteering in the nursery. Organizing volunteer opportunities. Preparing coffee and the like for a class or small group. Visitation to nursing homes, assisted living facilities and the homes of shut-ins. Serving on an administrative committee taking care of the church s financial, physical, personnel and other needs. 6
Opportunities to go We were a mission plant in the beginning, and we ve been passionate about missions ever since. Our message to our people is that every person is to Go, as in Go into all the world and make disciples The Great Commission remains our driving force, along with the Great Commandment. Every person in our church is expected to share something about their faith in natural ways with their natural audience. They will encounter people at work, at play, and in the community. Working faith into our conversations should be as natural as working our love for a particular sports team, television show or recipe into our conversations. We shall be seasoned with salt. We will also be intentional about sharing our faith with specific activities. Some of the opportunities we ll have in the course of a year would include, but not be limited to: Working in Vacation Bible School Working in WOWBSAR Working in Rehoboth Baptist Association mission and evangelistic projects in our own community (i.e. Georgia National Fair) Attending a Bill Glass Prison Ministry event Going on a state, national or international mission trip, whether it s sponsored by our church, another ministry, or simply a family project 7
The Benefits of Flexibility If there s one thing we know today, it s that we do not know all the answers to the challenges before us. However, we do know this: Some of our current scheduling has boxed us in to a limited ministry. Eliminating our Sunday evening programs opens up a great number of options for Sunday evening discipleship. As long as we have Sunday evening church, no one is really free to schedule a conflicting event. Once we remove that psychological barrier, we should see if we re like other churches more groups doing more things on Sunday nights. The youth, especially, would benefit from this opportunity. Our pastors can engage in short-term small-groups with different age groups in the church. Our senior pastor can continue a promising pattern of discipling men, future leaders and couples. Evening dinners, class parties, and children s events can be scheduled at the church on Sunday evenings, if there is no worship service. In the past, we ve often been willing to try new things knowing that if the new thing didn t work, we would back up and try something else. We eased into a two-service format first as an experiment. When it worked, we made it a permanent arrangement. Likewise, we tried one summer of combined services, found it to be a good match for us, and continued that practice. As for Sunday evening services, we ve been not meeting an average of 10 Sunday nights a year for the past decade. Though it wasn t an official experiment, the results were telling. There has never been an outcry against any of the no-service Sunday nights on holiday weekends. It is as if our church already understands there are some cases where it s simply not a good idea to force a service into a time slot that doesn t fit. For a complete look at the Sunday-night question, see our pastor s separate document prepared on the subject. This format, too, is something we should try with all our heart, and evaluate with all our minds. We cannot think that in an ever-changing world we ll never have to change again. Adding flexibility to our design will help us be prepared for whatever comes next. Though these ideas represent significant change for our church, change is certainly nothing new for us. As we have changed in the past, we are bound to change in the future. If some of the ideas in this proposal don t work, we are free to acknowledge that and to try something else! The Bible gives us complete freedom to find the right formula for reaching as many people as possible in a constantly changing world. 8
Our people are praying. They must not stop. Things we must do now One of the first keys to this proposed change lies in how well our young adults embrace the new concepts. If no young adult Sunday School classes want to move to a small-group format, for instance, it will not work. We will need to have the majority of these young adults on board, and aware that the entire future of the church is being handed to them. It will rise or fall depending on what they do. Our leadership must all be on the same page. Our pastors, deacons and other key leaders in the church must also understand, give input to, and be ready to support the new work, whatever final form it takes. As always, our leaders will lead by example. If our people see our leaders excited about change, they ll follow. If there is positive talk around the church about small groups, the new children s program, or even the new options we ve found for Sunday nights, it will overwhelm any negative comments about what we ve lost. There are times when we have to give up something good to get to somewhere great. This is an ideal example for our church. Our older adults need to be the first on board with a mentality of reaching the next generation. If they comprehend that we re trying to reach their grandchildren, and their grandchildren s children, it will become dangerous to stand in their path. They will do anything to reach the people they love most. In reality, the people around this church might not be our grandchildren but they are someone s grandchildren, and many of them are lost in this world, and lost for all eternity. The message of why we re changing must be wrapped in excitement, optimism and biblical passion. We must not become discouraged when people express opposition. We must understand and acknowledge the grief of losing a Sunday-night service (again, see the pastor s document on our Sunday-night challenge). We must remain free of sin, immersed in the Word, and on our knees. These are not trite phrases you d expect to hear from any church. This is our reality. We ll only get one chance to make such major changes with hopes of infusing our church with vitality and growth. Do this right, and we ll tell the stories the rest of our lives. Even by reading this document, you re helping. Please help us get all the way to the end of the finish line with this project! 9