We’re undertaking a building campaign to relocate soon, because God keeps sending us people, and we desire to be obedient to him, and to grow.
The interesting thing is that even though God keeps sending us people… Lots of people… We aren’t growing.
Our church has flatlined, and I think we have discovered the primary reason why.
People who study churches say that once you fill your main worship space to 80% capacity, you just stop growing. People may come try you out for a Sunday or two, but if they have a hard time finding a parking space, or finding a seat… If they are uncomfortable or put off, they simply won’t come back.
And here’s the thing.. You can’t beat the 80% rule. You can’t say “that doesn’t apply to us.” For whatever reason, all the experts say this is the rule. It just is what it is.
At The Orchard, nearly ALL of our guests come try us out at the 10AM service. We see VERY FEW guests at either of our other services. Why? For some reason, there is something magical about 11AM on Sunday when it comes to church in Ellijay. The farther away from 11AM you get, the more dramatic the drop-off in participation. (that’s why we have a 10AM, and an 11:30 service… TWO services really close to magic hour!)
The problem with “magic hour” is that our own people think that hour is magic, also… Look at our average attendance over the last 8 weeks:
Do you see that? We are OVER the 80% barrier at 10AM every Sunday. Guests come, try us out, and we are demonstrating that we have no room for them. We are effectively saying “we don’t really want you here.”
But remember, this is our average auditorium attendance for 8 weeks. Some weeks we have fewer. Some weeks we have more. See our Sunday MAX attendance in each service, below.
Do you see the problem?
God keeps sending us people, but we… WE are saying ‘we don’t have room for you. We… WE are saying that it is more important for US to have your seat, than for YOU to have a seat.
Our own people are taking up seats guests need. And every single one of those guests needs the gospel in their life. Don’t you? I do.
We’ve had various proposals made about this. Most of them involve expanding the auditorium to accommodate more people. This of course would cost us tens of thousands of dollars. Why do that, when we have plenty of seating available every week for no extra charge?
I have asked your lifegroup leader to talk with you about this issue this week and see if you would be willing to open seats for guests on Sundays until we can provide a better space in our new facility, as soon as possible.