Evening Service at New Life Fellowship
On October 4th, 2009, we launched our first evening service at New Life Fellowship. Since then we have experienced a wonderful sense of community as we have opened another door for people to be a part of our church. We have averaged over 180 people at this service. Many of these people haven’t been able to come Sunday mornings because of conflicting schedules, so it’s been a joy to welcome them and others who are new to our community. We are hopeful that God will continue to lead us as we point people to a deep, personal relationship with Jesus.
Throughout the course of our history, New Life Fellowship has experienced steady growth. Over the past few years, this growth has continued and our meeting space is virtually at full capacity. We launched the evening service because we want to be faithful in expanding our mission to point people to a deep, personal relationship with Jesus. If you would like to get involved at this evening service, please send an email to evening@newlifefellowship.org.
Some Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why did we start a new evening service?
- A 3rdservice is a very effective way to introduce more people to a deep, personal relationship with Jesus. It provides a venue for people who work Sundays, who are night people and only occasionally attend church, and for younger people. In other words, having a 3rd service will help to continue our mission of expanding the kingdom of God.
- This evening service provides an opportunity for our present leaders to grow and expand the use of their talents and gifts. At the same time, it opens doors for new leaders to enter into service to Christ on all levels.
- If we do not do a 3rd service, we potentially prevent people from joining New Life Fellowship. We are at 90% capacity in our 11:15 service and 80% capacity at our 9:15 service. Many researchers argue that when a church reaches 80% of their capacity, they are “full”. Right now, this is where we stand in both of our morning services.
- Leadership has been pondering this decision for the last five years, and finally, we believe we have the infrastructure, preaching team, and commitment to move forward in this regard. We are in a good position to continue handling the slow and steady growth that has characterized our church the past few years
2. What time will the service be, and how long will it be?
The service will begin at 6:00 pm, and close between 7:30-7:40 pm. Similar to the morning services, the evening service will be about an hour and a half and will have the same format.
3. Who will be preaching at the evening service?
4. Will there be children/youth programs available in the evening service?
There will be children’s programs up to 6th grade. Youth will be invited to attend the main service in its entirety.
5. How can I help?
· Pray for God to move mightily in this important juncture in our history.
· Invite a friend for the Oct. 4th kickoff service. This is a great moment to point people to Christ.
· We currently are looking for volunteers in our launch team for the following areas:
–Children’s church
–Bridge Builders
–Audio/Visual
If you’d like to help in any of these areas, please email evening@newlifefellowship.org.
6. How else will the service be similar or different from the morning services?
The services will be more alike than different. The only noticeable differences will be a different worship band, no youth service, and different staff members available at each service. Otherwise, the format, announcements, sermons, hospitality, etc will be identical.
7. How will this affect afternoon and evening events that the church has normally done (e.g. leadership, connection, equipping, membership, special services, etc)?
We will no longer be offering Sunday morning classes on Sundays at 9:45 am. Leadership and membership events will continue, but they will no longer have a meal component to them because of set-up/clean-up concerns. Connection opportunities and equipping classes will continue as usual in the afternoons. Contemplative and other special services will no longer take place on Sunday nights, but will be shifted to other nights during the week.
8. How will the 3rd service change New Life Fellowship Church?
We will continue to focus on being a high-quality church built on small groups that gathers around a Rule of Life. We remain committed to authentic transformation in people’s lives and living together as a community. At the same time, we believe God has called us to offer our few loaves and fishes back to Jesus to make Him known both here in NYC and around the world. We do not take this step lightly. While we expect God to meet us in this 3rd service, we are approaching this as pilot that we will evaluate after one year.
