An Open Letter on Our Worship Schedule

 
As I hope you know by now, we are moving to a summer worship schedule for the first time in my tenure here at Prince of Peace. In an attempt to consolidate our efforts this summer, we will have worship at 5:30 pm on Saturdays, and at 9:00 am & 10:30 am on Sundays. This will begin on Sunday, June 5th and go through Labor Day, September 4th.

But for me, this is just a first adjustment to our worship times. When we return in the fall to a fuller schedule with Sunday School, I want us to think about all of our worship offerings.

Since we’ve been back from our Covid closures, both our Saturday night service and our Sunday 11:00 am service have not come back to their pre-Covid levels of attendance.

Now, in fairness, we are now broadcasting our worship service and with those numbers added in, we are getting closer to our average attendance prior to Covid. But our sanctuary is not full and robust with people like it once was. So maybe. . . . . .since we are now live online, we don’t need four full liturgies every weekend.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. If people are traveling on weekends, would it make more sense to have a mid-week worship service (Wed or Thurs) rather than Saturday night?
2. Might we better serve our congregation with two larger services on Sunday morning rather than three – two of which are not well attended?
3. Is a full hour for Christian Education needed on Sundays?  A lot of college course are 45-50 minutes. 
4. Might we have a new schedule when we don’t have Christian Education up against our worship hours?  Something like . . . 8:30 am worship, 9:30 am Sunday School Hour for all for 45 minutes, and a 10:30 am worship service?
5. Would it be better to do Christian Education at another time during the week like Wednesday nights with a meal? And just have two big worship services on Sunday morning?

I have lots of other thoughts floating around in my head – a place where you probably don’t want to go! But as we come out of this pandemic with new technologies in place and new patterns of worship emerging, what might we do to meet our education and worship needs at our church?

Email me at jmorris@princeofpeacedublin.org or stop me in the hallway for a conversation. Let me know what you are thinking!!

Semper reforma,

Pastor John D. Morris