Two services

With the New Year, we began two services each Sunday morning at Westover. That's nothing new for many congregations - and it's not new at Westover, either. When we first began attending there they actually had 3 services - 2 in the morning and another in the afternoon. Then in 2000, we moved into the new Worship Center and with attendance divided in two groups we sort of rattled around in that big room, so we soon dropped back to one service.

We've grown, and of late finding a seat has been difficult for latecomers. People who purport to be experts in this sort of thing say that if people can't find a seat the congregation will stop growing. I don't know if that's really true, but for that and other reasons, we are now counted among the two service churches. All we had to do was figure out which service we wanted to attend. Early? Uh, everyone wants early; would you mind switching to late? And no one seemed happy with the schedule: 9:00AM and 11:15AM with class in-between. If it had been me, I would have the times as [insert favorite times here]. But of course, if you operate the sound system, or work upstairs in video, or sing, or preach or shepherd, you attend both services, so the time doesn't really matter.

And of course, to encourage togetherness (and help the communion servers) they roped off the wings and Tinsel Town, our affectionate name for the elevated sections. Now, there was grumbling about the times, but there was REVOLT when people found they couldn't sit in their regular seats. Trapped behind the sound console, I was the target of a lot of the dissent. I told them I had nothing to do with it, but if they really wanted their seat back they should do what they could to get the numbers up so their section was reopened. That didn't seem to appease anyone.

All in all, the first Sunday worked out okay; 770 for the first service and 450 for the second. And everone found a seat. It just wasn't their seat.