Recommendation to end Sunday Evening Service

Good morning. Good to see you here this morning. Thank you for adjusting your schedule to be here. Some of you are here rather than being in a Bible fellowship. I appreciate you so much for being here and adjusting your schedule in this way. We are here this morning to consider a recommendation of our pastors and deacons to discontinue our Sunday evening service. I want to ask this morning that for the next 45 or 50 minutes that you listen carefully with an open mind and heart. I want to ask you to think and pray about what you hear. If you have questions, we probably are not going to have time for those this morning, but we've devoted the entire evening service to a question and answer time. Obviously, we recognize those that will be most affected. Most affected, not all of those will be affected, but most affected are those who attend the evening service. So we're doing the Q&A this evening. I would encourage you if you have questions, jot them down as we go through the presentation this morning. Please think about them and pray about them this afternoon. Come ready to give those questions this evening and we'll take whatever time is needed for questions and discussion this evening. When you heard the announcement over the past couple of weeks about a presentation on this continuing the evening service, I imagine that some of you thought isn't this the same model that was presented last fall. I thought you said John, that was on hold. So let me first respond to that that thought by explaining my motivation for what we're doing this morning. I am not presenting the same model that we did last fall. First, we are not changing anything about Bible fellowships. Second, we are not combining youth and children's ministries under one pastor. Third, we are not extending the time of the Wednesday evening service or a wana. And fourth, we are not at this point recommending the starting of community groups. So what we're doing this morning is much, much different than what we did back in the fall. All of that that we talked about in the fall is still on hold. I want to assure you that pastor Dan is committed to shepherding the flock through the transition to a new lead pastor. He has dedicated himself to feeding the flock and providing leadership as the church makes this significant change in pastors. This recommendation this morning has been totally initiated by me. It is one of four initiatives that I have been asking the Lord to help me complete before I retire. These are four things that have been heavy on my heart and I would walk away with huge regrets if I did not seek to address them. The first is the hiring of a second full time secretary so that we can return to the staffing level we had before Sioux Farley retired. I want to express my appreciation to Lynn Strange and Vonda Wyatt and Dream Along who have all provided such wonderful and excellent secretary service in these past couple of years on a part time basis. It has become even more clear that we need two full time secretaries to return to the staffing level we had two years ago. This year's budget allows for that. We are working on that. The second initiative I have been asking the Lord to help me complete before I leave is the completion of the security plan. We have developed a security plan basically geared toward dealing with the situation of an armed intruder. We have teams in place, we have security cameras, we have teams well trained and we are functioning well with that security team. But there are other emergencies that we could face that I have been very much aware that we need to plan for. I have finished the first draft on six other policies that will now go before the pastors and deacons for refinement and improvement. But we need to plan for medical emergencies. We need to plan what will happen in case of fire. I forgot I am in southern West Virginia far. By the way I grew up here, I can do that. We need to plan for weather emergencies. We need to plan for missing children. We need to plan for the possibility of protesters or service disruptions. We need to plan for the potential for bomb threats or biological agents. I have finished policies on all of those areas. We will be working through them hopefully before I leave and be able to institute all of that as a part of our security plan. The third initiative that I have been asking the Lord to help me complete before I retire is the development of a clear strategy and working plan for church disciplines. I have been teaching on Wednesday evenings in our series on the church. What the Bible teaches about church discipline and we are at the point where we are now drawing up a policy and a recommended constitutional change which hopefully will be presented to the church later this month. That is coming close to being fulfilled at least the planning for the policy and working plan. The fourth initiative that I have been asking the Lord to help me complete before I retire is the resolving of the issue of the Sunday evening service. I stayed at carefully that way, the resolving of the issue of the Sunday night service because this is a fairly long standing issue. I want to take some time to recount the history. Let's move to the history of the Sunday evening service to set the table and provide a framework for the recommendation that we are making this morning. The Sunday evening service has always been a part of the history of Johnston Chapel from its inception and it has been true for most Baptist churches in the past. It still continues, Sunday night service still continues as a part of a traditional schedule of many churches in our area. In 2007, I first presented to our deacons in a two day leadership retreat that we were doing on small groups. I first presented to them then that we discontinued our Sunday evening service. That was 11 years ago. The purpose then was we were trying to develop a much larger strategy to institute small groups and in order to not just add something else to the schedule in order to make that our real engine for discipleship, our real focus on discipleship. I was recommending then that we discontinue both adult Bible fellowships and the Sunday evening service and really focus on small groups as our discipleship ministry. It was felt back in 2007 that this was too drastic a change at that time so we backed away from that idea. Eight months later, I departed for ABC to minister on their faculty. When I returned in 2010 as second John, I again recommended a change in the evening service in 2010. For the very reasons I will mention in a few moments. But primarily because of the drain on the senior pastor of three or more fresh sermon preparations per week, I want to come back to that issue later because I don't think that is really understood well. It's different than it used to be 30 years ago in the past and I want to come back to that later. So we started in 2010 what we called a fellowship service. It included a brief devotion, some testimonies, time for prayer requests and prayer and the singing of favorite songs. And we did that for a while. However, there was significant resistance and undercurrent. So after about a year, I opted to go back to a preaching service on Sunday evening. I made it clear at that time and have made it clear several times since then that I could no longer do fresh preparation for that service and do the other things that had been put on the plate of a senior pastor. So I made it clear I would be using old sermons for the Sunday evening service. I also want to come back to that later and explain that in a little bit more detail. At that point, when I made that decision, I did you and whoever would follow me as the next pastor, a disservice by not providing proper leadership for this church. I've never liked conflict due to my personality. It takes a huge toll on me. As I've gotten older, conflict has taken more of a toll on me and it takes longer for me to recover from it. It's one of the factors in my decision to retire, not the major factor, but it is one factor. And that is that continuing indefinitely with a diminishing capacity to absorb the hits of leadership would not be good for the church. My decision back in 2011 to go back to a preaching service on Sunday evenings was motivated primarily to avoid conflict. And that was wrong. It was not motivated by what I felt was best for the church in long-term ministry effectiveness and it ended up setting up my successor for failure. That was wrong of me. This is the reason I consider this unfinished business on my part. And I have asked the Lord to give me strength to address it before I leave. That is the sole reason this is coming up to you this morning. So given the motivation and the history and the background, let me now jump into the reasons for discontinuing the Sunday evening service. I want to give you this morning five reasons why I believe that is in the best interest of our church moving forward. I want to start with the least important reasons, the first two are least important. And then I want to move to the more important reasons. So if all you hear is the first two, you are going to shake your head and think that is not a reason enough to drop a service, to discontinue a service, and you would probably be right. These are minor factors but they do factor into the decision and the recommendation. So I am going to mention them. The first reason is the difficulty in staffing. What I mean by that is it has become increasingly difficult to staff the support ministries around the Sunday evening service. Ministries like nursery, sunshine club. By the way, we have a great couple that leads sunshine club. Jimmy and D.D. McKenzie do a fantastic job with sunshine club, but we cannot find any backup for them as hard as we have tried. So you know, they need to go on vacation sometimes and they're sick sometimes and when that happens, we have no one to take their place. The same thing is true with other support ministries. We find it increasingly difficult to staff security on Sunday nights. We are down to people and as hard as I've tried, I cannot feel those two slots. We're finding the same thing with musicians, with people to run the technical, the sound or the light and sound in the auditorium. We're having the same problem with welcome center hostesses. One of our secretaries has moved into that role because we can't find people to staff the welcome center on Sunday night. So the reason for that is obvious. We have a limited pool of workers here on Sunday evening. So it's more and more difficult to staff those support ministries that enable us to do the Sunday night service. However, that's a minor reason. Second reason that I want to give for discontinuing the Sunday evening service is decreasing attendance. Again, this is a minor one. You know, I would still have a service for two people. But this is a factor in considering discontinuing this service. By decreasing attendance, I'm not talking about from last month or maybe even last year. But if you go back far enough in our record, you go back to the 90s and the early O's. I don't even know what you call that decade, but I call it the O's. We were averaging between 200 and 250 on Sunday night. You go back to preacher Jimmy's day when the schedule was basically Sunday school Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night. The Sunday night attendance was about as much as it was during Sunday school. And so gradually almost imperceptibly slowly, it has decreased through the years to where we have including children's ministries and youth ministries, which draw a lot more people than they used to on Sunday night. We average about 150 or less on Sunday evening. That is a trend across the country with very few exceptions. Now, you'll be able to find exceptions to almost everything I say. You get online, you'll find some church that is booming on Sunday night. I can probably tell you what kind of church that is. It's not the kind of church we want to be. And I'll just stop there. But you can find exceptions to that, but in typically churches like ours, Sunday evening service is and has been for 20 years, slowly dying. Okay, those are the two insignificant reasons. They're factors, but they're not as important as the next three. I'm going to explain to you these last three are significant. And it is my firm conviction that if we do not begin to address these three things, I fear for the future of our church. These are that significant to me. And the reason why I've been willing to risk taking some more hits before I leave, because this is important, very important. So the third reason I want to give you is this, the demands on the senior pastor. This is difficult for me to talk about, because I feel like it comes across like complaining. And I just want you to know that it's not my heart. I have three months, less than three months left here. I could push and push and push to the limit and know that I'm going to get some rest in three months. But that's not the issue. The issue is going forward. I want to try to explain this one to you some at the risk of sounding self-serving and complaining, which I certainly do not intend. Over the years, the demands on the role of a senior pastor have increased dramatically. If you've been here for the length of time I've been here, I came here 28 years ago. If you've been here for that time, frame, you know we have significantly increased ministries of our church. Multiple ministries have been added. Multiple outreaches have been added. Why I don't have direct hands on oversight of those ministries or lead them, the senior pastor oversees to some degree all of those ministries. I deal with staff who do have hands on oversight of them. I give counsel advice. I need to know what's going on in all of those ministries, because some people do come to me to ask questions. I need to have some amount of hands on for every ministry that takes place in this church that has significantly increased over the years. The senior pastor's relationship with the staff has increasingly dramatically increased over the years. Early in my ministry here, there were no such things as weekly staff meetings. And there were only three staff members, primarily three what you would call full time staff members. Our staff has significantly grown over the years as the church has grown, as the ministry has become more complex. And so we've instituted weekly staff meetings and weekly pastors meetings, two separate meetings for two different kinds of staff. Our whole staff meets every week and that is important. It's important for accountability as far as our calendar issues and all being on the same page. We pray together, we put some issues out on the table to have the whole staff that we need to be able to be on the same page about. But then our pastors also have a meeting every week to deal with more strategic issues, planning, ministries, the church services, all of those kinds of things. I meet individually with staff. A few years ago we began evaluations of each staff member, which is important. We didn't do that in the past. That takes a lot of time to properly evaluate staff members. And I could go on and on with staff oversight, staff, social times to build teamwork and all kinds of things that take place there. Meetings have dramatically increased in the role of lead pastor here. I don't do as much visitation and counseling as I used to, although I still do some of both. But I probably average three to five meetings a day anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours in a meeting. It's just part of the territory of being a senior pastor. The oversight of a ministry, this complex requires that you meet multiple times with staff, with church members, with other people who have needs, and with even things outside of our immediate church ministry. The administration of this ministry has grown significantly. Without going into a lot of detail about my schedule, I'll just say this. I have a written schedule. I'm just like that. I block out times for this and this and this every day. And my written schedule calls for 55 hours a week. It used to be before we hired Jim Simmons closer to 90. But when Jim took a lot of pressure off of me as far as counseling and visitation was concerned. But it's still around 55 and that's what's on paper. Realistically, it always goes over that. Now, I'm not alone in that. Every one of our other pastors works at least that hard. It's not harder than I do. But I just want to let you know that over the years and the last 28 years, the demands on the senior pastor have multiplied. And there are so many things to keep up with that three fresh sermon preps a week are unrealistic. Now, there are some of you who have teach Bible fellowships and you're thinking, I work a full schedule and I come up with a lesson every week. I understand that and we deeply appreciate those who sacrifice evenings and Saturdays to come up with good teaching material. But I think most of you probably would agree that you use some kind of curriculum, whether it's a book that somebody's written or a curriculum has been put out. And even though you work hard on that, it does some of the work for you. That is much different from opening your Bible, looking at a passage and starting from the ground up, building a sermon. It is much different. It takes me 10 to 15 hours to do one half decent sermon on a Sunday. It takes me 10 to 15 hours to prepare it. Usually, closer to the 15 hours, multiply that by three. If you're doing three fresh preps from the ground up every week, you're already talking 35 to 45 hours. There is not time to do everything else that a senior pastor has to do. For that reason, I have made it clear I handle Sunday nights by using old sermons. I have to. There's no way I could come up with three fresh preparations a week. I can't do it. I spend less time on Wednesday evenings than I do on Sunday morning. Most of my preparation time is for the Sunday morning message. But Sunday evening has become kind of a John King's favorite hits night. You know? Go back and pick out a favorite sermon and preach it. I have been so tempted to respond this way to some of you on Sunday evening who've come up to me and said, that's a message you ought to preach on Sunday morning. I've been so tempted to say, I already have. It may have been before you came or you may not remember it, but I already have. My point is this. It is absolutely not fair to anyone younger who doesn't have 45 years of material to draw from. I would expect them to come up with three fresh preparations a week. I would challenge you to find any church of our size and complexity that requires that as senior pastor. I've done my homework. I know. It just doesn't happen. This is not about dance capabilities. Dan is an excellent preacher and teacher and you're seeing that, aren't you? Yes, I know you are. But three fresh preparations from the ground up per week at that level with all of the other duties of the senior pastor is unrealistic. I cannot do it. We should not expect anyone else to do it either. Now, this is not as I have heard. This is not a desire for the lead pastor to get out of work. I hope I've made a case that there is plenty of work beyond the Sunday evening service. I spend minimal time on Sunday evening and I'm still pushing six or more hours a week. There's plenty of work. Here's the point. There needs to be some time to focus on needed ministry opportunities for the future. If the lead pastor is tied to doing three fresh sermon preps a week, he will not have time to give to future planning. I read a book years ago by Leith Anderson called Dying for Change. It was one of the first books in the 90s that I read that motivated me to understand what a church needed to change in order to move into the future. He used an expression that I've never forgotten. He said the church needs someone who can spend some time looking out the window. I've never forgotten that expression. His point was this. If a lead pastor has no time to think, pray, plan, look at what's going on in the culture and lead the church appropriately to make adjustments to be able to more effectively reach a new culture. Then he will be failing the church and the church in turn will fail because the lead pastor doesn't have time to do that hard work. What I'm presenting to you is that we need to have a trade off in one last sermon prep and trade that for time to be able to think strategically about the future. Pastor Dan will need that time. There's one other thing I'd like to say about the demands of a senior pastor. Younger pastors on staff have family responsibilities that I don't have. They have children, young children that need them. This one is very dear to my heart because I made some mistakes along these lines in the 90s before we hired Jim Simmons. I'm still paying for it as a dad. I cannot leave here thinking that will happen to one of our younger pastors. Their families need them. They can't work 60 plus hours a week and be model parents for their families like this church deserves. Their kids need a daddy at home. The demands on the senior pastor, that to me, is very significant. But I must hasten on. The fourth reason I'm giving you this morning for discontinuing the Sunday evening service is the duplication of ministries. Sunday evening service duplicates what we're doing in other services. It does not provide anything fresh or new that contributes to the purpose of the church. We spend times in worship or in the word corporately on three other occasions per week. Bible fellowships Sunday morning, Wednesday evening. We have corporate preaching and teaching times on three other occasions per week. This is not an issue of, oh, John, you can't get too much of the word though. You can't grow too much. I would fully agree with that. But that's not the issue. The issue is what our purpose is as a church. And our purpose as a church is to develop and grow followers of Christ who love him, who grow in him and who serve him. Three purposes, three equally important purposes of this church. We want people who will come to love Jesus. That means they need to come to know him. That means we need evangelistic outreach so that people can come to know and love Jesus and want to come worship him with all the time. We need to worship him with all their hearts. And we do need people to grow in the word, which requires the preaching and teaching of the word. It requires discipleship. And we need people to serve. You say, John, we do a lot of all three of those, right? We do need people to understand. But we are overbalanced on the gross side. Yes, we do some evangelistic outreach, but that needs attention. We're not seeing new converts except mostly children, people who have grown up in our church families. We have adults who are coming to know Christ who are even attending our church services, who are lost, is not what it used to be. And that's because the way you reach lost people is different than it was 20 years ago. We had a, and I'm in danger of getting off track here, but we had a response on our Facebook said something about how sad it was that we were considering this because the church needs to be reaching a lost and dying world with the preaching of the word. I can tell you the lost and dying world is not showing up here on Sunday nights. The lost and dying world is out there with skepticism about the church and we need to go to them. We need to go to them. And I've been preaching that for 28 years. We need to go out where they are. They will not come to a Sunday night service anymore. So yes, we need to be reaching the lost and we need more of an emphasis on being out in the community to reach them, not on all gathering 50 or 60 of us in the auditorium on Sunday nights. We need the emphasis on evangelism out there where they are. We've still got plenty of opportunities to grow. Bible fellowship Sunday morning, Wednesday night. And we need serving opportunities. We've got all kinds of ministries. Yes, we do. We do. And most of those outreach ministries function here in our church building. And many of them still draw people from the community. But we desperately need to be out in our community more. Because it has got to be some time opened up in our schedule to balance. We still have plenty of opportunity for grow. We need more on evangelism and serving in the community. We desperately need that. I've come to know Pastor Dan on a deeper level these past couple of years. I think I've called a little bit of his passion. I've seen a little bit of it. His passion for serving and outreach needs space in our weekly schedule to be a focus for the future. We need to allow him the space to lead that and to grow our church in those desperately needed areas. And he needs time to plan it and model it. It's not just coming here on Sunday night. It's all the work that goes into putting that service together and preparing that message. He needs that time to be able to focus on these other things. Quickly number five. Fifth reason why I'm recommending this to you this morning is the dynamic of cultural shifts. A couple of areas where this has been very, very prominent. The culture has shifted. Now we will never respond to cultural shifts by changing our message. You'll never hear us do that. You'll never hear me do that. You'll never hear Dan do that. We will always stick to the Word of God and the gospel of Christ. But if we don't change our methods to be more realistic and relevant to what's happening in the culture, we will slowly die as a church. And I've said that for 28 years. So one area where the culture has shifted dramatically is in young families. Most of our young families are two income families with children. Both working outside the home. Not all of them, but most that's the case. And in most of those cases, that's necessary. It's not a luxury. It's necessary. Now we can debate all day what I'm going to say next. And I'm not going to debate this. Okay. So don't even ask me this question. The rest of the week is filled up with school events and sports schedules. And what you're going to want to debate with me is the parents are at fault there for letting your kids do too much. I'm not going to debate that issue. I'm not going to change that. You probably aren't either. I wish it would change, but it's a reality. So Saturday is basically spent for these young families. More than the yard if we ever get snow off of it. More than the yard and clean in the house and doing the wash and the ironing and catching up on the shopping and doing all that kind of stuff. Sunday afternoon and evening. I've seen this for 20 years. Sunday afternoon and evening is the time when families have together. That's a huge cultural shift. The second cultural shift is in churches. It is rare for churches to have an evening service anymore for the very reasons I've listed and for the next one also. That is true with churches in our area. Now most churches in our area still have a Sunday evening service. It's a lot of them do. But most churches of our size and complexity of ministry do not expect their lead pastor to do three messages a week. I've checked their websites. And while they may have three services a week, you look at how those other two services Sunday night and Wednesday night are configured. At least one of them is configured in a way that does not require the lead pastor to do a message. We are the only church in our area of our size and complexity of ministry that requires that of the lead pastor. But even more important to me than that is reaching the next generation. I'm getting older. You are too. Don't look at me that way. You are too. It's more difficult for me to relate to the needs of a younger generation. But our young guys on staff understand this much better than I do. They see it. They know it. We need to think in terms of what the younger generation needs as we think about our church's future. And younger generations, young families, millennials. That we're not reaching as well as we were even 15 years ago. We are crying out for significant serving opportunities and community in a group fellowship in a group where they can learn with discussion oriented small group type of dynamics. Learn from other people. Older men, older women. I know there's some opportunities like that in our church. I understand that. But we're not where we need to be. I remember when we had Dr. Walt Hanford here in 1997. Dr. Hanford who had transitioned south side Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina from a very, very traditional independent Baptist church into a more relevant contemporary church and took a lot of hits for it. The whole community of Bob Jones University left that church because of that. I remember we had him here in 1997. I believe it was. And I asked him to come to a weekend series of meetings on how the church needs to change. And I'll never forget. He walked off this platform and walked down here. He was 75 years old when he was here. And he looked us in the eye. And he said, I'm speaking right now to the people my age, 75 years old. I'll never forget this haunting question he asked. Do you want a church that's comfortable for you for the 10 or 15 years you got left to live? Or do you want a church that will be relevant for your grandkids? And they won't drop out of church. They won't stop coming. What do you want? And I asked you the same question this morning. What do you want? I spent time a couple weeks ago with a young man from a great family in this church. And he kind of started to slip off the radar screen. And I was asking him why that young man is longing, is longing for the very things I'm talking about this morning that we need to do. Pastor Dan and I were in the hospital Friday morning with a young couple. One of that one of the two was going to be having surgery that morning. And we heard them talk passionately about a church they'd come from. They're new members of our church fairly recently. Heard them talk passionately about a church they'd come from, a small group they were in, and how they still get together with those people because of the significance of learning in that atmosphere. That is what the next generation cries for. And if we do not think in terms of the next generation for the future of our church, we will lose them. We'll lose them. Please don't misunderstand me. We are not turning our backs on the older generations of our church. We still have adult Bible fellowships, a traditional worship service or contemporary worship service. If you prefer that, we have a grow class on Wednesday night. We have DMA fellowship. We have plenty that suits your interests and meet your needs. And we're not giving up on that. We will continue to meet the needs of older generations in our church. But if we do not think strategically about reaching the next generation, the next two generations under me, then we will lose them and we're already doing that. We're already losing them. I want an issue of warning to you this morning. We are not reaching millennials like we used to even 15 years ago. We're not reaching young families like we were 15 years ago. And I know we have a lot of kids that go through here in the contemporary service and go to kids club. I understand that. But I can tell you the other side of it because I hear from them. Many of those young families are hanging on hoping for change in the future. And hoping the church will become more relevant to where they are and where they live. If we don't start making some of these changes, then we will start losing them to other churches in our area who have already realized this and who are doing it. And some of those churches don't have good theology. We'll lose them anyway. And our church will gradually grow older and it will look fine for a while. But start looking around and watch our church grow older. Notice the absence of younger families. 20-somethings in college students. If we don't open up, and this is just a small step, if we don't open up some time to be able to focus on other outreach opportunities that we need desperately, then we can sign ourselves to a future like I just described. Now, I know that some of us are thinking, what about other ministries on Wednesday night, like kids club crew and youth outreach and others, we have tried to think through all of that and I'm going to address that at this point with the help of a couple of my fellow pastors. Kids club crew meets on Sunday evening. What will we do with that? Jason, who is our new children's pastor, has a tremendous plan for how to merge kids club crew with a WANA. So Jason, please come. Good morning. I'm very, very excited to be a part of what God is doing here at Johnson Chapel. God is moving. What a privilege it is to be a part of it. Let's begin by looking at some of the key goals for this age group. The third through fifth graders. Kids club crew is made up of the fourth and fifth graders, but I want to include the third graders in this too. In children's ministry, the goal is to begin building the foundations and these items to know and practice spiritual disciplines such as a quiet time, daily Bible reading and scripture memory, to have a good rounded knowledge of the Bible, even how to begin preparation and how to teach lessons, how to share their faith, how to serve and begin identifying their spiritual life. Now let's get into a little bit about what the changes will be that we're looking at. On Wednesday nights, the program will change again for third through fifth graders. We will no longer use the Oana TNT program. I don't let that scare you. Hang with me for just a minute because the Oana curriculum is not suited well to meet all of those goals. I just went over with you. It has good aspects in it and you'll see why that works here in just a moment. We will use the kids small group curriculum from third grade on. This is the curriculum that we're very familiar with that we use currently in kids club crew. They have a 101 book that we've not used that we'll use for the third grade group. The 201 book for fourth and fifth graders in the first year and then the second year for the third and fourth graders will use the 301 book. Third graders instead of being truth in training in Oana, they'll be called arrows, at least that's what I'm tossing around anyway. They will work in the 101 books, which is how to belong to Jesus. They will be learning what it means to be a servant and what it means to be a Christian. The fourth and fifth graders will still be called kids club crew. They'll still serve in kids club on Sunday morning just as they do now. They will be working in the 201 book, which covers how to grow in Jesus and the 301 books how to serve Jesus. This will go over things like putting their faith into practice by serving and applying their spiritual gifts and the basic discipline of having a personal quiet time with the Lord. None of these changes would take place right away. They wouldn't take place until September of this next year. We'll finish things out just as they are now. The younger kids, sparks, cubbies, puddles, all will remain in place. We're not looking at any changes for them. It'll only be for the third through fifth graders. Now, a little bit of the differences between a wana and crew. A wana's main focus is scripture memory. That's obvious. We went through a change. A wana began a change two years ago in the TNT program, which is the third through fifth graders. They began, I will say, tacking on discipleship into that. They brought in some small group dynamic to it. Some good ideas, but in the time that we have with the kids, we found it and meeting with the leadership time after time. We found that difficult to make that work while emphasizing what a wana tries to do in emphasizing scripture memory. Now, kids club crew is very strong in discipleship. It simplifies the discipleship process and it emphasizes service to things that a wana didn't do well at. But with crew, it's lacking in the scripture memory aspect. So we can take the strong points of these two programs and bring them together. Crew and arrows will be joined with the wana on Wednesday nights. I've seen this work. I'm going to pull off my notes here for just a second. I've been in church ministry all my life. I've been in full time ministry for 11 years. I know that's not very long, but it's long enough to see the Lord do some awesome things. I was very resistant to a change that we made at Heavens and Ministries. Many of you are familiar with that ministry. We got the hunger challenge coming up next weekend. I was very resistant to the things that were toothed. One really major thing and one other thing that we wanted to discontinue doing. That I had a big part in that were very successful ministries. Lots of people involved. But as we prayed in South of the Lord, we felt like that that needed to end so we could spend more focused time on the food ministry. Before that, there had never been a weekend when a quarter million meals were packaged, like it has been year after year here for the last six, seven years. That was about seven years ago that changed the place. That's just here. That's not including all the other events that happened across the Eastern Seaboard in the Midwest and in Texas. Millions of meals have been packaged because the Lord wanted to make a change seven years ago. When you can spend more focused time on what the Lord has called you to and when the Lord's behind it, it's an awesome thing. That's why I'm excited about this. I see this as the same thing. To merge together, crew, and what would be arrows into a wand on Wednesday nights. The third and fifth graders would still start at Flag Ceremony in the gym just like they do now. They would play games and use the Oana Square and they would also earn Oana shares and participate in the Oana Store as incentive to accomplish goals. The extra half hour will give time for us to add the scripture memory aspect that we know how to do so well from Oana and bring that in with the simplification of the strong points of the discipleship process through the kids' small group curriculum that we already use. What a great opportunity it is to be able to take two programs that our church knows so well and merge them together. I'm very excited to see what the Lord has in store for our young people. Psalm 7-1-17 says, Oh God, from my youth you have taught me and still I proclaim your wondrous deeds. May our children that take what is being taught to them now and use it to bring more glory to our Father than any of us could ever imagine. Thank you. Thank you Jason. All of that what he's just talked about, the merging of those two Sunday night Wednesday night ministries for children will take place within the current hour and a half timeframe of Oana. So it's a beautiful, beautiful strengthening of our children's ministry. The second ministry that will be affected by this discontinuity Sunday evening service is our youth outreach which takes place on Sunday evening. So Pastor James. So in regard to the youth outreach, the youth outreach that happens on Sunday night is a vital part of discipling our youth to love Jesus, growing their walk with him and to serve him. And so with that understanding going forward, the youth outreach is going to continue. And it's going to be a fairly simple change in regard to the youth outreach. The youth outreach to Mercer Street on the third Sunday night of each month will continue. It's a neat ministry. I know in the short time I've been able to step into that role. I really enjoyed that ministry and the opportunity to build relationships there. So that will continue. And then in addition to that ministry, there will be another youth outreach planned one time a month. So we're going to go from meeting every Sunday night. So there are only being two youth outreaches a month. Of course, the outreach to Mercer Street is set on the third Sunday night of each month. But then the other outreach, it might happen on Sunday night or it could also happen on a Saturday morning. It could happen at any various times. So it actually allows us a lot of flexibility to be able to meet up with other people in our community to go into help serve needs. Because Sunday night for some opportunities are out there, but Sunday nights are not a good time. So it will give us more opportunities to serve in different ways such as that. Something as simple as the Abel Center in the past, the youth have helped put out mulch and clean up the building and organize things and prepare prayer letters to go out. So that will instead of doing it on Sunday night when you're fighting the sunsetting and time like that, you could do it, for example, on a Saturday morning. And so again, you'd have those two youth outreaches a month. This schedule allows a lot of flexibility. This schedule still allows families to have more time together on Sunday nights to meet that need. And it allows there to continue to be a good balance with love, grow, and serve in our youth ministries. So I'm excited about this change and look forward to it. Thank you, James. There are other things that take place on Sunday evenings, the rest of which I can rattle through pretty quickly. They're very simple, easy adjustments to make. So let me do that for just the next three, four minutes. Chapel 101 through 301. Those three classes take place on Sunday evening. Those would probably be changed to Wednesday evening. We can do them just as well on Wednesday evening. Pastor Dan will be retooling those. He's sitting in with me now on those and they will be improved dramatically. The next time they're offered, I'm sure if he sees fit to still take two hours, then we can still fit that in on Wednesday evening starting at 615, going to 815. But it may not go two hours. So we will make that adjustment. But that if it does go to two hours, that would only be 101, 201, 301 classes. The choir, some of you wonder about the choir. Once we vote on this, if the vote is to discontinue Sunday evening service, Pastor Jim plans to poll the choir members to find out when would be the best time for you to meet for practice. Parents of prodigals, another ministry, this meets off campus anyway. Does not meet here in our building any longer. I checked with Lynn Strange, the leader of that ministry, and she is fine with continuing to meet as they are. It's not really affected by the Sunday evening service. The Daniel plan. I checked with Carol Molder, the leader of that ministry. They're not currently meeting, but if there is a need for that meeting again, she feels comfortable that that ministry can meet on Wednesday evening. E412. E412, I checked with Mike Molder, who is the director of that ministry. There's a limited involvement in E412, and that may continue to meet on Sunday. All they need is a key to get into the room where they live, stream those sessions. That would still be possible, or they may move to another date, but that ministry really is not tied to our Sunday evening service. CR Step Studies. Pastor Jim has assured me that these meet at different times, some of them meet on Sunday evening. They may continue to meet on Sunday evening. Again, that will be their decision, but they're not directly tied to our Sunday evening service either. Fellowship Meals. We only do two a year on Sunday evening. The last few years we've done one in June, one in October. Our other Fellowship Meal times are the Easter breakfast and the August Church picnic, which is in the afternoon. We only do two on Sunday evenings. We're thinking those could be done at another time, maybe like what our picnic is, have a combined service and a meal together, or we may change them in some other way. But again, those are not really essential to the purpose of our church, like the other things are. Teachers meetings occur on Sunday afternoon, close to the evening service. They pretty much stand alone. Not many of the folks in those meetings attend our Sunday night service, and so it's not really tied to Sunday night. I checked with Kathy Hawkes, who leads those meetings. She has a fantastic plan for reorganizing how those meetings happen. And just I think a very exciting plan for that. So that is not an issue or problem. Security teams. Security teams meeting. Security teams meet on Sunday afternoon, close to the evening service. They stand alone. Very few of those folks stay for Sunday evening service. So it's not affected by that service. They can continue to meet then or meet it some other time. The Christian Book Club, I checked with Linda Cox, the leader of that ministry. She's fine with moving to Wednesday evening. Feels that will work fine for that ministry. The digital disciples, a small group that meets and helps with our church technology needs. They meet on Sunday evening. I've talked with Bill Parish, the leader of that ministry. He is formulating a plan within that group to decide what is best for that ministry as far as their meeting time and location. You may wonder why we don't have Sunshine Club on the list here. And the reason is this. I've already mentioned we have an excellent couple that works with Sunshine Club. The difficulty with staffing that ministry is not them. It's with people to take their place when they're not able to be here. The reason why Sunshine Club is not on this list is. Sunshine Club was needed on Sunday evening to provide a valid ministry to children who were not in crew. We have two different groups of children that needed ministry on Sunday evening. With crew being merged with a WANA, there already is a ministry for other children on Wednesday evening. Sunshine Club has provided that on Sunday evening. It was needed there. It's not needed on Wednesday evening because there are already other children's ministries providing that ministry possibility for them. There's no need to move or adjust that ministry of Sunshine Club. In closing, I want to mention again the question and answer time tonight. We will be taking the six o'clock service for any questions or discussion. I have not, well, I have something as a backup to preach in case there are no questions. But we're planning on taking the whole service to take questions and answers, your concerns, your discussion that you want to talk about this evening. And then we will vote on this issue among some other items we have to bring to you. More routine type of items on April 29th. I want to urge you this afternoon to pray for the Lord's direction and wisdom as we discuss tonight and then plan to vote on the 29th. Now, some of you are thinking, wait a second, I can't be here tonight. And I completely understand that the reason why we chose Sunday evening for the Q and A time, we knew we wouldn't have time to give it adequate attention in this time. The reason we planned it for tonight is the Sunday evening service people are the ones most affected by this change. They need the opportunity to ask whatever questions they have. If you can't be here to ask a question, please, please address that question to me. I'm sure the purpose of your question is not to be heard by other people. Anyway, it's to address a legitimate concern you might have. I would be glad to take whatever time you need to interact with you personally individually on any question that you have. But please pray for the Lord's direction and wisdom in this. What we believe is a needed change for our church to move forward for the future. Could we pray together, please? Father, we want your will to be done. We want your will to be done for our church. And as we look at the big picture of what's happening and what needs to happen for the future to be effective, we believe this is a rather small change that will allow the church to go forward in the future in a great way. We believe we have sensed your leading, but Lord, we need the affirmation of your people. We need the church to really decide this issue. And so, Lord, you know, we've done our best to pour out our heart on this issue this morning. I pray, Father, that as we think and pray about what's been shared, that you would give us wisdom and direction for the coming days and the vote on the 29th. Now, Lord, bless our service to follow. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.