God is at work in the life of Rocky Creek Baptist Church! We are seeing him do some mighty things in the lives of our people and in the lives of those they are engaging.
In recent weeks as we have studied the Book of Jonah, God has been impressing on our hearts to open up the doors and pursue the people of Greenville county with the gospel. I am constantly humbled to serve alongside this church that truly wants to be a church on mission and reflecting a multi-generational and multi-ethnic gospel unity.
Due to the increase of attendance and the desire to reach more people with the gospel, we are going to add a second service at 9:00 am on Sunday, April 2nd.
Here is our reasoning for doing it now:
Reasoning
- Capacity. The church rule is that when you are at 80% capacity, people feel crowded and many people will stop coming because they don’t want to struggle to find a seat. We are well beyond that percentage. We have over 10% of our attenders in a different space on Sunday mornings currently.
- Overflow. To provide an actual positive experience in an overflow room, we will need to spend significant funds. If we have the flexibility in our existing buildings to add an additional service, we do not think it is the wisest stewardship to spend money on unnecessary technology.
- Easter. Easter is April 16th. While most Sundays are full with our current number of attenders, we definitely would have to adapt for higher attendance on Easter. Instead of making a temporary Easter schedule, we propose to get the logistics of a new schedule ironed out for two weeks before an even higher influx of people show up on Easter. We want to be able to tell them to stick around for the next weeks, and we need to make room to do so.
- Necessity. This addition is not due to an idea as much as the reality that the current growth necessitates. We believe that this addition is the wisest and easiest way to accommodate all involved.
Details
- Switch. We are going to ask for individuals, families, and Bible study classes to consider switching their worship time to help us build the 9:00 service. If you volunteer to switch, we will consider you a part of a 9:00 service “plant” where we attempt to build it to a size that makes the room feel full on day one. Until needed, we will close off balcony so we won’t lose the moment um of a full room worshiping together.
- Options. If your Bible study class volunteers to worship at 9:00, your group could meet at 8:00, 10:30, or any other time during the week. We will work as hard as we can to accommodate requests for classroom space. In reality, this change will provide more options for space.
- Children and Youth. At this time, we will not make any changes to existing schedule for children and youth. We know this hinders many of you from making a change, but we don’t have sufficient volunteers in place to do something different currently.
- Preschool. This addition will not change the preschool in any way. Avoiding adding the service at an earlier time will allow us not to require additional volunteers or times.
- Worship Team. The worship team will have to adjust more than anyone to accommodate for this growth. Pastor Donald will be working with all members to ensure a great plan going forward.
- Hispanic Service. The Hispanic Service will continue to meet in the chapel at 10:30.
- Discussion. We would encourage your class to pray this week and discuss options when you gather next Sunday. On Sunday, March 19th at 5 pm in the Fellowship Hall, our church staff will be available to help discuss how to make this addition the smoothest we possibly can.
- Volunteer. If you are excited about what God is doing and want to help, we can help connect you with a meaningful place of service to help in many different ministry contexts. To pull this off well, we would love some extra servants. Contact the church office to help!
Please pray for our church as we go forward!
Services at 9 & 10:30 starting Sunday, April 2nd
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
