After this past Sunday’s church service I know how the UNC football players feel. About 1/3 of the people who were present when the service started left before I even got up to preach. I’ll let you in on a secret – that kind of thing really works on the preacher. Here is how we lost 1/3 of the people about half way through the service.
NGWC has an annual tradition of having the 4 year olds from the Child Development Center do a little program during a church service on Sunday morning. When we started the service the place was packed but I had been told that some of the crowd would leave after the program so that they could attend their own church services (our service starts at 10 am). The children did their thing at the beginning of our service and went to the exit door to “high five” them as the left for doing a good job. Almost all their family members followed them out and I shook their hands as they were leaving. One man even suggested that I should preach on the exodus. I then had to go back into the sanctuary to preach.
Needless to say – we will be discussing in staff meeting this week how to better handle this situation next year. I know that some of the folk did go on to their own church after they left us but I wonder how many? It is good for our regular church folks to see the child care kids and their families but does it discourage them to see them all leave instead of staying for the rest of the service? I have some ideas but perhaps you can help us as well. What would you do differently next year if you were in our place?
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