While some churches struggle to keep attendance levels up, an FIEC church in Hampshire has been experiencing a different kind of problem.
Cowplain Evangelical Church, part of the FIEC network for 80 years, has quadrupled in size over the past decade, challenging its leaders to fit everyone into the building.
Senior Pastor Phill Brown, who arrived in 2006, was thrilled with the growth, but the church had no options to expand its current site or move to another. So Phill and his team decided to completely rethink the structure of the church week.
He said: ‘There were times when the building wasn’t being used at all, so it made sense to provide worshippers with a bigger choice of services to attend.’
Discovery and Discipleship
The team settled on moving to a three-service model on Sundays, each with a distinct feel and purpose. Two morning services, renamed The Discovery Service, designed to be ‘seekersensitive’, and an evening service, renamed The Discipleship Service, were launched.
Phill said: ‘To be seeker-sensitive is to be mindful that unchurched people will be among us and that we need to be respectful of that. We don’t call new people ‘visitors’, we call them ‘guests’. That means we treat them as guests and do everything possible to help them feel comfortable because we want them to come back.
‘We don’t compromise the biblical message in those morning services, but we do explain everything we’re doing. My welcome is always the same, because I am primarily addressing our guests.’
The church serves refreshments after each morning service to help the two congregations to connect, providing quality time for fellowship.
Phill said: ‘The ongoing challenge is how we connect people to each other. In our Newcomers course we tell people that they can’t know everyone, but they must know someone. From there we encourage people to join a small group.’
Sunday evenings
Evening services at Cowplain provide detailed biblical teaching and are very much geared towards building discipleship. Refreshments are served before the service.
Phill added: ‘We found that people just wanted to go home after an evening service, so refreshments followed by a period of worship and then Bible teaching works well for us.’
But while the evening service is attracting a good attendance, Phill would like to see more people going along.
He said: ‘An evening service is something that every pastor needs to think through carefully. I understand that some pastors may think they’ll run evening services just because they have to. But if they can’t really put in the effort, the congregation won’t either.
‘Alternatively, some pastors mess around with their evening service and try something different each week. This means the congregation doesn’t know what they’re going to. Generally speaking, people want to know what’s going to happen.
‘Crucially, at Cowplain, we see our evening service as vital.’
The church, formed in 1885, now has over 250 people attending their three services, with a good number of seekers in the morning. Phill added: ‘The changes we’ve made mean that, at least for now, we’re able to accommodate everyone who comes through our door.’
