Use of Church Buildings and Day of Week to Meet for Worship

[Neto]

A question regarding funds used for missionary or evangelistic work: How much is one soul "worth"?

re: Number of meetings held in the church house in a given week: In the MB congregation I grew up in, we had services on Sunday morning and evening, and also on Wednesday nights. Always. When I came here to Holmes County, it was a new thing to me that they occasionally (maybe once a month?) skipped the Sunday evening service "in order for people to visit their families". Wednesday evening services were generally not held all Summer long. (We currently will have special services on Wednesday evenings for around 6 weeks straight in the Fall.) I wonder if the dismissal of regular services doesn't go back to the Amish custom of bi-weekly meetings. But is was also that way in the early period of the MB conference, in Czarist Russia. Often it was because it was growing so fast that they didn't have enough preachers, so some men ministered in several congregations, over a fairly wide area. To me, Sunday School time is when the real fellowship of the church takes place. No, it isn't the entire group together. Our congregation, like many now-a-days, have "small groups" and monthly "fellowship meals" to try to keep the congregation united. How much of this change is due to forces or influences from OUTSIDE the congregation? Things like the greatly increased busyness of the average family, and lots more entertainment.

[Ernie]

West coast Mennonites tend to have services on Sunday evening and when we chop up the time block we end up with something like this:

0930-1300 morning service
1730-2030 evening service
Time overlap is due to social interaction and estimated turn over time.
That would leave a slot for a sunrise service which most people do not do except on Easter, a mid day service which would be a dramatic change for anyone, or a late evening service which would only appeal to night shift workers.
When you consider the times… the point is quite obvious.

Mormons who have multiple congregations meeting in the same building will begin with the first group at 7AM, and another group entering every two hours. They have Sunday school and visiting at the end of their time together. By 9 AM, the second group is using the main auditorium and the first group is meeting in the Sunday school rooms or on their way home. We don't think about trying to steward our resources the way they do, so we don't design our buildings to accommodate this sort of traffic flow.

[Ernie]

As noted by several people, the church at home model has some serious problems and you either sacrifice leadership that knows it’s members, or have multiple small churches with all the problems to stability that come with it.

Yes. there are problems that come with this... but I am not sure the problems are worse that what are found in established Anabaptist churches.

Good house churches (in the Evangelical world) are known for reaching people that will not darken the doors of a church and if they meet with other house churches at least once a month, it can help with the stability aspects. Until settled and historic Anabaptist churches have figured out a way to welcome and keep lots of unchurched and less churched people in the church, I'm glad to see other models attempted.

[Ernie]

How did “ Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. ” turn into once a week with occasionally an extra meeting?
This is one area the JWs do very well at last I heard…
We have done a poor job of supporting one another as we have church, and we have family. We go to church, we have family. We tithe to church, we share with family. We attend church, we fellowship with family.

I suggest this comes as a result of moving away from the New Testament model for planting and sustaining churches.

[Soloist]

I suggest this comes as a result of moving away from the New Testament model for planting and sustaining churches.

The problem is that it’s not very clear how it was done. Some (FOTW) claimed you needed Apostles first, others look at how Paul did solo work sometimes, others point out the all in common aspects. The list goes on and on of how people believe church planting is supposed to be done.
I can tell you this much, calling a church being built as an outreach in the middle of nowhere 30 minutes from the parent church is not an outreach but an expansion.

[Josh]

I would like to see a lot more plain Anabaptists rent or buy up old church buildings not in use anymore. They are extremely plentiful and they have little value on the resale market. Nobody really wants a 75 year old church building.

Our church acquired a building in Eaton CO for around $400k complete with classrooms for school and enough parking for school. It has been more than adequate for services. Of course, it doesn’t have a gold plated kitchen or the latest amenities to make conducting weddings a tad easier, but it also didn’t come with a multimillion price tags.

We also acquired one in Charlotte MI for around $250k. They ended up not even needing a loan. The pastor of the former Methodist Wesleyan church lives next door and is grateful to see the building in use again. It also had enough extra rooms to start holding school and has a fairly large parking lot.

Both these buildings are near downtowns of small towns but that particularly seem like a problem to me.

[Soloist]

West coast Mennonites tend to have services on Sunday evening and when we chop up the time block we end up with something like this:

0930-1300 morning service
1730-2030 evening service
Time overlap is due to social interaction and estimated turn over time.
That would leave a slot for a sunrise service which most people do not do except on Easter, a mid day service which would be a dramatic change for anyone, or a late evening service which would only appeal to night shift workers.
When you consider the times… the point is quite obvious.

Mormons who have multiple congregations meeting in the same building will begin with the first group at 7AM, and another group entering every two hours. They have Sunday school and visiting at the end of their time together. By 9 AM, the second group is using the main auditorium and the first group is meeting in the Sunday school rooms or on their way home. We don't think about trying to steward our resources the way they do, so we don't design our buildings to accommodate this sort of traffic flow.

Wife: I grew up in foursquare churches like this, and all I can say is that it feels rushed because you have to get out of the next group’s way, and you do not get the amount of fellowship that I’ve experienced at Anabaptist churches. The best time I found at my church growing up was Saturday night, because it was small enough and not so rushed, so that you could sort of get to know some of the people. The bigger one that we walked in and promptly walked out of felt like going to the mall over Christmas. Also, with some people coming in as other people are going, at least to non-plain churches, it’s easy not to know who you’re actually going to church with and to be overlooked as a new person. Also, all the cleaning people and stuff like that are generally paid positions, which I don’t think is always the case at Mennonite churches, and I can imagine that our cleaning lady would fuss that she had to hurry and get it cleaned before the next group, and before she could sit down and eat lunch with her family.

Maybe churches should just use their current buildings more often, buy old churches, or if they’re building it from the ground up, make sure that they can have school and fellowship meals at the same place and still not break the bank. Ours isn’t super fancy. In fact, it’s actually rather crowded and would never be able to work for a school or dining area, but we use it Sunday mornings, sometimes Sunday evenings, Mondays for neighborhood children outreach, and Wednesdays for prayer group, and sometimes other days for special events. It’s been there for ages, and I think it would just confuse the homeless people if there were multiple churches meeting there. It might work for some places with high Anabaptist populations, but I don’t want someone to come at the wrong time when I invite them and end up going to some random church.

Something I thought was kind of nifty, but I never got to visit, is the church in Idaho that shared a building with a veterans center. Only Mennonite church I’ve heard of with a tank in front of it.

[Ernie]

I would like to see a lot more plain Anabaptists rent or buy up old church buildings not in use anymore. They are extremely plentiful and they have little value on the resale market.

[Ernie]

Wife: I grew up in foursquare churches like this, and all I can say is that it feels rushed because you have to get out of the next group’s way,

I'm curious about the set up. Had you already left the auditorium and were in smaller groups where you could stay for an hour after small group time? Or did you need to exit a room to make space for others.
With the Mormon churches, there is an hour for the whole group being together. Then an hour of small groups. After that you can stay and visit for an additional hour in the Sunday school rooms before you need to leave.

Something I thought was kind of nifty, but I never got to visit, is the church in Idaho that shared a building with a veterans center. Only Mennonite church I’ve heard of with a tank in front of it.

That's great!

[ken_sylvania]

West coast Mennonites tend to have services on Sunday evening and when we chop up the time block we end up with something like this:

0930-1300 morning service
1730-2030 evening service
Time overlap is due to social interaction and estimated turn over time.
That would leave a slot for a sunrise service which most people do not do except on Easter, a mid day service which would be a dramatic change for anyone, or a late evening service which would only appeal to night shift workers.
When you consider the times… the point is quite obvious.

Mormons who have multiple congregations meeting in the same building will begin with the first group at 7AM, and another group entering every two hours. They have Sunday school and visiting at the end of their time together. By 9 AM, the second group is using the main auditorium and the first group is meeting in the Sunday school rooms or on their way home. We don't think about trying to steward our resources the way they do, so we don't design our buildings to accommodate this sort of traffic flow.

That sounds like an excellent way to put a damper on the fellowship aspect of church life.
In order to accomodate something like you are describing our meetinghouse would need to be about twice as big as it is now - I hardly see how that fixes anything.