Customer Reviews

How to Start a New Service: Your Church Can Reach New People

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For any church considering, or that should be considering, adding a second (or third) service, this is an invaluable tool. Arn's focus is not on duplicating an existing service, but on designing a new service, one different from the present service, intended to reach a clearly defined target group.

In my chuch consulting work, as I help churches identify and remove barriers to growth, I almost always give this book to churches that are at the point of needing to add a second service. I recommend that they form a Worship Options Task Force that will then use this book as a road map for their work: defining who it is they want to reach with their new service, then making appropriate decisions about time, place, style of music, etc., based on who their target group is. This book can lead such a planning group step by step through this process. It can also help the group with the critical decision of when to add the new service as well as how to gain congregational support for the new service.

Arn estimates that half of all congregations are good candidates for adding a second service. From my work, my observation is that that percentage is on the high side. A church may meet the numerical criteria Arn outlines, yet not be ready to add a second service; there are sometimes other other needs or barriers to growth that need to be addressed before the new service issue is addressed. But even though I might not apply this book's recommendations to 50% of all churches, for those churches where a second (or third) service is needed, this book is a wonderful and practical tool.

Dr. Charles Arn presents a step-by-step approach at deciding if, how, when and why to start a new church service. Anyone in church leadership would benefit at the orderly approach and abundance of helpful information presented. May be a liitle dry to those not interested in the area of church growth.

I'm a new church start pastor and our service has grown a lot and I was thinking about adding a second service. Another new church start pastor gave me a copy of this book and I love it. I bought a copy of this book for everyone on the committee to determine if we should start it or not.

This book gave wonderful examples of when to start, under what circumstances should we start and where we shouldn't start.

Highly recommended. We are launching our second service before long! Get the book - buy a few extra copies for your worship team!


UPDATE: This book helped so much. We are now a little over a year after starting our second service. If it wasn't for this book, I don't think we would have made it! If you haven't started a 2nd service before, read this book - do what it says, pray to God!