Matt Keller offers excellent ideas for a big paradigm shift in your church.

Moving from 1 service to 2 services is a major cultural shift for your people and is going to make people nervous. What we have discovered is that any time, ANY TIME, a church makes a major cultural shift, it breaks trust with attenders to some degree. It’s not bad, it just is a reality that leaders must not be naïve about.

Here’s how we teach it to pastors. Anytime you make a major cultural shift in your church (add a service, move facilities, etc.) you effectively “spook the sheep.” People get uneasy and are less likely to invite their unsaved, unchurched or dechurched friends. Unconsciously they’re thinking, “Is this safe?” “Is it going to be the same?” “Is it going to be too big?” Etc.

In our experience, it takes between 4 and 6 months to regain that trust and for attendance and giving to rebound. We call it “the 6 month tail.” Don’t let it throw you if you don’t “double over night.” You’ll grow, just probably not as quickly as you think you will.

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