Questions and Responses Regarding
Contemporary
- Will the congregation be given
an opportunity to express their concerns? Yes, of course. As soon as
the Church Council has a recommendation and further clarify in their
discernment process, we will seek further input from the congregation. Our
church governs itself by a Church Council in a representative form of
governance, and the membership of the church has full access to the council
members. The list of Council members present at the last meeting is printed
with the minutes of the May meeting.
- Why should a new service disrupt our present worship schedule?
We believe it is imperative to have the contemporary service as a part of
the Sunday morning schedule. This is based on research that says un-churches
folks are more likely to attend a service on Sunday morning than any other
time of the week. 32% of the Chippewa Valley doesn’t attend church, and
another 35% attend less than four times per year. In order to provide two
traditional venues each week on Sunday morning, as well as add this third
venue, we believe the worship schedule would need to be altered. I would
suspect in the life of the congregation this won’t be the first time there has
been a worship schedule change nor will it be the last. In fact, we changed
the schedule last summer and had good results with bringing our 9:00 and 10:30
am service to 9:30 am. After speaking with the music staff, the majority felt
they would have adequate time to rehearse with a schedule that was 8:30, 9:45,
and 11:15 am. A schedule change does cause upheaval, but we hope what we gain
will far outweigh the temporary strain of the adjustment.
- Why not add a contemporary service at 10:30 or 11:00 am? We
believe having the service concurrent with one of our traditional service will
cause folks to have to decide between worship and Sunday School, between
Traditional and Contemporary. With our proposed schedule, families can go to
worship in a traditional service and then to Sunday school, or come from
Sunday school and go to the contemporary service. We also believe that parking
will be an issue as both of our venues grow.
- Can the church financially support the capital and operations needed
for this service? At this juncture, we will need only to add staff
support to coordinate the music. We believe we have someone willing to help
with this at a very reasonable cost. There are funds available through the
Foundation to offset some of this for 2005, but we will need to budget for it
in 2006. We believe that growth in membership will offset the cost for the new
venue. Most of the capital expenses will be covered in the Capital Campaign
that is coming in February 2006.
These are four questions I’ve heard so far. We will continue to address your
concerns as you raise them. Many thanks to the folks who love this church enough
to express their concerns and think and pray creatively with us as we discern
where God might be calling us.
Updated on 5/30/2005
email: Leonard Larsen