Book Review: How to Start a New Service by Charles Arn

This book found itself on my desk today because of changes that are happening in the fall at Maple Grove Free Church.  Because of the growth that we are seeing in our church we are running out of room and are in need of implementing a new service.  So this fall we are planning to start an 8:15am service.

A staff person who had this book, How to Start a New Service (though had never read it) thought it might be a helpful resource.  I will say that after reading it I thought it was a helpful book, but not helpful towards giving us information regarding the direction we are moving this fall.  Actually, within the first few chapters of the book, the writer actually says that this book is not for churches that are looking to implement a new service – meaning an additional service identical to one that is already existing – as much as it is for churches that are looking to add a new service that is quite different for the type of services they are doing now.

It was very interesting to read this book, seeing that last fall we actually implemented this type of change.  We used to be a church with only one style of worship service, but now we are a service of two styles.  Here are some notes I took during my reading of the book:

• pg 15 Do not add a church service if community it the highest priority of your church
• If your leaders and/or members…are primarily committed to preserving “one happy family,” an attempt to begin a new service will be frustrating and probably fail.
• churches in the 60-80 percent range of sanctuary capacity-the point at which a new service is most likely to negatively affect the growth of the existing services
• Members must ask, Who is the new service for?  Why are we starting a new service?  How are these new people going to be reached?
• Pg 28 regarding new visitors….Are we a church that has a culture of inviting people?  Are we a culture that embraces the visitor?
• Pg 31.  A mistake some churches make in an effort to broaden the generational and/or spiritual range of people attracted to their existing service(s) is to diversify the music or liturgical style.  In so doing, however, most churches actualy diminish the effectiveness of their present service(s) among every people group including their predominant one
• PG 67 The visionaries go to more progressive churches and the stalwarts to more traditional ones.  The question is: Who would you rather keep?
• pg 92 research says that 96% of all church services in america focus on either baby boomer christians (1946-64) or Senior christians (pre 1946)
• pg 135 about going from 2 services to 3
• Adding a 3rd service at 8:30am … places two burdens on your new service – it will tend to start small because it is new and it will tend to remain small because it is early.

• PG 142-143 Among researchers and church growth authorities, there is almost universal consensus that planting a new church is the best means of reaching new people with the Good News.
• pg 153-154 The keys to designing services
• The service is not the message, the service is the message
• Well attended services are well prepared services

Overall this was a pretty good book, and by the metrics found here, you could say that our church has successfully navigated what could have potentially been a change with negative ramifications.  I will admit that there were many points at which the books information or suggestions sounded very outdated.  It was obvious that the information was when I finally looked at the front of the book and found it was published in 1997.

So while this was a good and enjoyable read, I don’t really recommend it.  There are tons of other resources that have more relevancy for ministry in the year 2011.