Historically, the Hospital Church blogs are for general consumption – and we really want to encourage you to check our blog site every week for our newest addition. This week’s blog, however, will be very specific to the Florida Hospital Church Family and very directed in its purpose. Our goal is to provide a forum for thoughts, ideas, and dreams for the services at our church.
As many of you have noticed and brought to the church staff’s attention, our church appears to be approaching a transition point. As more new members have arrived, and as new visitors are coming through our doors, the 11:30 am Exchange service is filling to overflow. At the same time, our 9:00 am Morning Worship has a fairly small attendance which appears to be due to a combination of time and style. Our children’s Sabbath School classes (an important driver of our church’s growth over the years) are near full capacity.
So where do we go from here? This is a question that the church staff has been thinking about for several weeks, and there are several possible directions they have considered:
1. Maintain current services; open overflow seating in a classroom at 11:30 am. (Children & Adult classes remain at 10:15 am – does not relieve crowding)
2. Maintain current services; create Friday evening worship opportunity. (Children’s programming only at same time as new service)
3. Continue 9 am Morning Worship as is; duplicate The Exchange at 10:15 and 11am. (Children & Adult classes remain at 10:15 am – does not relieve crowding)
4. Maintain 11:30 am Exchange; move 9 am service to 10 am, restructuring style somewhere between Morning Worship and The Exchange. (Children’s programming at 10 AND 11:30 am; Adult classes at 10 OR 11:30 am)
5. Maintain 11:30 am Exchange; move 9 am service to 10 am, restructuring style somewhere between Morning Worship and The Exchange. (Children’s programming at 9 AND 10 am; Adult classes at 9 AND 10 am)
6. Offer 2 styles of worship service at the same time – one in Worship Center and one on 3rd floor. (Children & Adult classes remain at 10:15 am – does not relieve crowding)
7. Maintain current worship services; add additional Exchange service at 12:45 or 1:00pm. (Children’s programming and Adult classes at 10:15 AND 11:30 am)
8. Maintain current worship services and Sabbath Schools; add additional Sabbath service late afternoon or early evening. (Children’s programming only at same time as new service)
You may have another idea, suggestion, or thought about our current situation not presented here. This is your opportunity to make your voice and your ideas known, to be a part of an important decision that will affect the way the Florida Hospital Church continues to do ministry, make a difference in their community, and “Love people into a lifelong friendship with God.” Let the conversation begin!
Note: We would like to know who is joining our conversation, so we ask that your comments be made with your name rather than anonymously. Also, in order to keep our conversation on track and productive, please only submit comments relevant to this topic. If you have anything you would like to address that does not pertain to the point of this blog, please contact the pastors directly. Thank you.
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ReplyDeleteI like options 2, 7, and 8.
ReplyDeleteKudos to you, leaders, for reaching out like this! And esp. to Tami for awesome worship services!
This is kind of a tough one. Personally I like the Exchange service and it's important to me to have Sabbath school time (on Sabbath morning). With that said, here are my two cents on the different scenarios:
ReplyDelete1) Overflow seating wouldn't cut it for me with the Exchange service. It's not the same experience as seeing it "live"
2) This goes against my sabbath school theory and would be tough one the AV crew that would need to be there Friday as well as Sabbath. Disclaimer: I am one of the AV crew.
3) I like this one. It wouldn't require any additional AV crew and some may like a "condensed" worship with the kids in SS and the adults in church at the same time if they choose.
4) I like the church idea on this one. The SS teachers would have twice the work though.
5) same comments as #4
6)I like this one as well. Morning worship doesn't need a killer sound system and the 3rd floor is plenty big enough for the 50-100 people that attend Morning worship. How would the preaching work though?
7)I like this church idea as well. We could use the one AV crew. I bet a number of people would come to a later service. This would also be a good SS solution if we needed two sets.
8)This goes back to my AV crew (and all other support services) comments. Everyone would have to come back.
I haven't been attending church regularly lately so I don't know if my vote really counts or not ... I have three young children, ages 5, 3, and 1. I prefer the contemporary service but I can't do the 11:30 am time very easily because that is right when the kids are used to lunch and then quiet time, so we get out of church with hungry, cranky, tired kids who fall asleep in the van then wake up early from their naps, STARVING and not rested. Not my idea of a restful day, so when we do attend we've attended the 9 am service. However I really miss the drama and more contemporary music of the other service, so I really don't feel as blessed as I could. Would it be possible to have a traditional service and a contemporary service at 9 am? Maybe have the traditional one on the third floor? The traditional hymns don't need the same amenities that the other service does. I fear that might upset those who like the traditional service, though. I can say I don't think we'd make a later service on Saturday. A Friday evening service sounds great but I'd still want the kids to have a children's church or sabbath school of some kind; that's a big part of the reason we go.
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd share my thoughts.
Thanks,
Sarah (Hollenbeck) Baca
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWould a Friday evening service with an age appropriate children's worship service happening at the same time be appealing to you as an alternative to Sabbath morning?
My family has attended the contemporary service for nearly 15 yrs. I have to say, that the switch to 11 am has made it really hard on our kids (3 & 1). Since the change I don't think I've been able to sit at a single service. My husband ends up watching the service alone & I end up sitting around the lobby or in the wiggle room (though this hasn't been available for weeks!!!) while I calm down the kids & they fall asleep.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of 2 Sabbath School classes or an additional contemporary service is not the solution for our family. My husband & I are both involved in our children's sabbath schools and my husband is involved in the contemporary service & the extra time that this would take away from our family is not ideal for us.
Ideally we would love to see 1 service time around 9:30 in which the style of service with the greater amount of people sit in the sanctuary & the one with the lesser attendance sits on the 3rd floor. They would both have their own individual live praise & worship as well as announcements & the one on the 3rd floor can view the person deivering the sermon from a live video feed. Following this with Sabbath School classes. This does not provide relief for Sabbath Schools but with a greater amount of people in the building at the same time I'm sure we can come up with more volunteers.
We know that the church provides day care. Unfortunately this is not an option for our children, we have tried multiple times & because of the large amount of kids usually in there & this being my kids nap times they just get grouchier because they can't fall asleep due to the noise level in the room.
I have to mention that my husband & I have been considering looking at other churches in the area, not just because we no longer get to enjoy a service as a family but also because of the lack of children and family programming. We no longer have Kings Kids, children's choir, puppets or family nights. All things that we were told were coming back after Fernanda left. We need a church that is providing these types of things for our children & with no sign of these things coming, we feel we have no choice. I've even spoken to the people that have been helping put these things together for years (offering my help if they should need it) & they themselves are shocked at the lack of interest from the church in getting these things going again. So, here we are approaching the Christmas season & there is absolutely nothing special for our children to look forward to.
We hope that the fact that the church is looking into service changes also means that the children's department is being looked at carefully. This has certainly given us renewed hope & we will stick around for a few more months that we initially intended to, in the hopes that the children's department gets on track once again. We love this church & feel very comfortable here, but our entire family's spiritual health needs to be addressed.
God Bless
I am sorry to hear that you have been faced with such frustration in your experience at our church. My heart goes out to you and your family. I truly admire your resolve to attend church with your family in spite of the frustrations you are feeling as you go through the process of getting your family ready for church and out the door, only to meet the unfulfilled need of having a quiet moment of contemplation of your own. We have a strong desire to minister to the needs of our mothers and young children.
ReplyDeleteI believe you will be happy to know that we are currently in the process of restoring the Mother’s Room at the back left of the church sanctuary. In recent years, this room was designated as a ‘training room’ and more recently has been used as prayer room and a meeting place for various small groups. The room is being painted this week and 4 new glider rockers are being ordered. We plan to stock this room with quiet toys appropriate for toddler age children and several cribs for those children who need to nap during the service time. There will be a changing table stocked with supplies there, as well. This room will be available as soon as the new chairs arrive.
In spite of what you have apparently heard, there is a strong desire to reintroduce Kings Kids. In fact, we have been working to prepare a weekly program solution for children ages 4 – 6th grade that will have a Kings Kids type format, and will serve as a solution to fill a second Sabbath School slot. The hope Is that puppets will be incorporated into this program on a regular basis.
And plans are in store to have a children’s choir beginning in January, along with a kids’ drama club. The goal will be to have our first drama and musical presentation at Easter time.
In regard to Family Nights, we have decided to proceed with an Adventurer/Pathfinder Program which will be provided for children from the age of 4 to 8th grade on Wednesday nights. The planning and implementation of this program has been time intensive and exciting! Our meetings will begin on Wednesday, January 6 at 6:30pm. These meetings will be preceded by a fellowship dinner from 5:00 – 6:30pm and there will be high school, women’s, and men’s small group ministries going on at the same time, as well as child care.
We will be hosting fall games for children and their parents at the barn party and are planning to host a Parents Night Out in December.
I would love to have you stop by our Children’s Ministries Booth on Saturday, November 28 in the church lobby to sign up for any of these upcoming activities and to volunteer to help bring these great programs to our church family! I would love to meet you and answer any more questions you may have.
A life of faithfully serving and obeying God allows Him to place us in a position to be consistently blessed. Let’s bring God great Glory by serving his children together!
Thank you Cece, for outlining the near future plans for Children's Ministries. It warms my heart as a new parent to find that this church is being incredibly intentional about our children.
ReplyDeletePlease make this information available to the entire church ASAP, as the complaint above centers on "lack of information", and as much as I love this blog section, I know that it is not widely read and is not a general forum for distribution of information.
Please feel free to get outright and BOLD in front of the church and let everyone know over and over again about the upcoming events.
Your service is much appreciated,
Susan Hess
Thank you, Susan, for the word of encouragement. There is now a Children's Ministries Newsletter at the reception desk of the church, and I am pursuing other methods of communication, as well.
ReplyDelete