We’re ADDING A 2ND SUNDAY GATHERING!

FEBRUARY 16th | 9 & 11 AM

On February 16, 2020 All of Life will be adding an additional worship gathering on Sunday mornings. Below are answers to common questions you may have to help with this transition:

WHY ARE WE ADDING A SECOND GATHERING?

We have a challenge in front of us, and it’s a good one!

We need to create more space for those the Holy Spirit is bringing our way to receive Jesus. This includes both believers and not-yet believers. The need for more space is especially true in our kid’s classrooms. On a busy Sunday, it’s common for us to close two classrooms that reach maximum capacity, and the other two classes are not far behind. In addition to kid’s classes, we are running approx. 70% capacity on average Sundays in our auditorium and our parking lot.

Here are four options a church has when facing this kind of facility challenge:

• Stop inviting people to come. This will never be our answer.

• Plant a new church and send people out. We hope this will one day be our answer (and soon!). Currently we do not have someone who has expressed the calling and desire to plant.

• Move to a larger space. We’ve been actively searching for real estate for over a year. We’re open to lease or purchase, but nothing suitable has emerged and we do not yet feel we have the resources to jump on an opportunity at fair-market value.

• Add an additional service in our current space.

Through months of prayer, thought, and discussion, the leadership team at All of Life has decided adding an additional worship gathering is the correct decision for the growth we continue to see and the expansion of our ministry impact.

WHAT are THE BENEFITS OF ADDING AN ADDITIONAL gathering?

While any change can be challenging, we believe the benefits of moving to two services will greatly outweigh the difficulties we might encounter:

1. Two gathering times help us to better accomplish our mission.

Ultimately, the purpose of All of Life is to fulfill the great commission Jesus gave us. We exist to Saturate the Inland Northwest and the Nations with the Good News. If we are unable or unwilling to provide space for people and their children to come, worship and hear the Word of God, we have misunderstood our purpose! Moving to two gatherings will allow us to create much needed space to reach more people. In addition, adding more service options may enable more people to come who otherwise would not be able to due to work or parenting schedules or other commitments.

2. Two gathering times help us to better love and serve our children in All of Life Kids.

Our growth has brought us to a barrier in how we handle our children’s ministry. As numbers rise, volunteers are tasked more with crowd control than one-on-one conversation or small group leadership. We want our children (and volunteers) to experience an amazing Sunday morning, and that means having enough space to engage each child.

Our goal in All of Life Kids is to plant the Gospel and Have a Blast. We have approximately 50 weekends per year to plant the Gospel deep in the minds and hearts of our kids. We do so by showing our children how Christ is the sum and center of God’s Word by faithfully connecting seemingly disconnected stories in the Bible to Christ. The future and flourishing of every man, woman, and child depends upon faith in Christ.

Additionally, many of our children’s classrooms are over capacity, and we are regularly asking some parents to keep their children with them during the service because the rooms are too full.

3. Two gathering times will allow people to serve and not miss the worship gathering.
Right now we have over 34 volunteers in AOL Kids who faithfully serve on a montly basis. Currently, this requires these servants to miss our worship gathering one out of every four weeks. Adding a second service will allow people to serve at one service and still join a worship gathering on the same Sunday. We hope the culture of  “Receive in one, Serve in One” will become a regular part of our DNA as we fulfill the command: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil 2:4)

4. Two gathering times will allow more people to serve and use their gifts.
As our church grows, there are times when people struggle to find a place that they can serve, or at least they can perceive that to be true. Two services will create many more “entry level” serving opportunities for people, and will also stretch others by encouraging them to sacrifice a little more. Either way, it will cause all of us who are willing to be moved out of our comfort zone to be used by the Lord in service to others. The “magic” rarely happens in our comfort-zones. It’s outside—in the place of sacrifice and service—where the magic regularly happens.

5. Two gathering times will maximize our resources.
Two gathering times will allow us to be good stewards of the resources that God has given us by using our facility and resources to their greater potential. The move to two services will have very little impact on our overhead expenses, but will simultaneously double our capacity for ministry and mission. While it will require a little more work and some additional sacrifice of service for many of us, it will be a huge return on investment for the expansion of the Kingdom of God and accomplishing His mission.

6. Two gathering times will provide new opportunities.
While there will still be very limited space until we acquire new facilities, there will be some added opportunity to provide discipleship for more people while either of the worship services is taking place. We envision equipping classes, prayer, AOL intro, counseling, and one-on-one discipleship occuring during this time. This new format will give greater opportunities for increased discipleship on Sunday mornings.

Two Services Faq

We know there are many questions that arise in a big decision such as this. Our hope is that the following FAQ will help answer some of your questions.

When will the transition take place, and what will the new gathering times be?
February 16, 2020 will be our first Sunday with two services. They will be at 9:00 & 11:00 am.

Will the gathering itself change at all?
No, our worship gatherings will remain the same and the two services will be identical in form and format. We love what God is doing in our worship gatherings, and an emphasis on God’s Word preached, God-honoring worship music, prayer, and a time of reflection and communion will remain our focus.

Will All of Life Kids be offered during both gatherings?
Yes. One of the primary reasons we are making this move is to add more space for our kids. To be able to offer this ministry at both services, we are asking our current leaders to serve more often…but our real hope is that many more people will join in to love and serve our kids together. If you have questions about how to get more involved with All of Life Kids, we encourage you to reach out to Meredith at meredith@alloflife.church.

What will my kids do if we serve at one service and attend a second?
We want your kids to LOVE Jesus and His church, and we want to minimize anything that would cause them to dread having to be at church. This means that we want to make the time in All of Life Kids as engaging as possible and do things that will make them want to come back and be a part. We recognize that most kids don’t want to be a part of the same program twice. To help with that, we are planning to have a special room to bless the kids whose parents graciously serve in Grace Kids and also attend the worship gathering. This room will be staffed, and will be filled with fun and games (and snacks!) that will make your child’s extra time on those mornings a joy for them. For the teens at All of Life, our hope would be that they too can serve in one service and join their family in worship for the other service.

Won’t this divide us as a family? I already feel like I don’t know everyone.
This is a real concern that we have labored and prayed over. The fact is, the larger our church gets, the harder it is to “know everyone,” even if we continued to gather all together. Our desire is not that everyone would know one another but that everyone in our church is known.

The primary purpose of Sunday morning worship is for the glorification of God and the edification of the saints. Fellowship and community is a great added bonus, but the main vehicle for that at All of Life is our Community Groups. Community Groups are really where church becomes family. Our location is not what makes us family; our common Savior and shared mission is what makes us family, and that will not change.

Will we ever gather together as one large family again?
Yes! This move will make it even more critical that we think through ways for our whole church family to gather together as one body. We will prioritize multiple outdoor summer services and will occassionally rent larger venues in order to gather everyone together. Additionally, we will continue to have Family Meetings for those who are part of our committed core.

Will we go back to one service in the summer?
Our plan now is not to return to one service in the summer. While many churches can encounter lower numbers in the summer, we have generally not found that to be the case here. This summer we grew rapidly. Many people move here in the summer months and we want people to experience the same worship service they would experience if they joined us in the fall. We also know that the change back and forth can be very challenging and want to minimize that as much as possible.

What happens if our growth slows down?

This is always a possibility. We are adding a second service as a means to steward the growth All of Life has seen for three consecutive years. We grew by 59% in attendance growth in 2017, 54% in 2018, and 61% in 2019. If we continue to grow at 50% in 2020 we will be averaging approximately 225 people on Sundays at this time next year. If we do not grow and two gatherings hinders our mission and community, we will readily go back to one gathering.

Are there needs with this new change that I could help with?
Another great question…Yes! One of the ironies of a church growing larger is that often times a smaller number of people do a greater amount of work. This is not good! We want as many people helping and engaged as possible, and this change will provide ample opportunity for that. We will need more help with media (sound, audio, video), worship, All of Life Kids, greeters, safety, hospitality, etc. This is what a family does…it takes turns serving one another! Young, old, married, single, boys, girls…there’s room for everyone to help and serve.

If you are interested in helping to serve our growing church family, we encourage you to visit alloflife.church/serve and see the opportunities available. We are always looking for more people to use their gifts to serve others at All of Life. Remember…church is a battleship (all hands on deck), not a cruise ship (how can others serve me?).

What are my next steps?

1. Be excited and show excitment!   Even if you have some questions, commit to helping build the excitement level of what God is doing through our church!   Commit to telling someone what God is up to at least once a week!   Yes, it will require hard work, but rare is any truly good endeavor that didn’t involve hard work…create callouses.

2. Be there!   If you have been gathering with us on a semi-regular basis we’d love to have you join us more regularly during this transition.

3. Consider how you can serve.   Consider how you may be able to adjust your schedule in order to be present and able to serve.   We truly need all hands on deck.   Many of you are new to All of Life and recovering from past church experiences.   We love the fact that Jesus is meeting your needs and you are healing here.   There may be many of you who are ready to re-engage.   Now’s is the time.

Finally, If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to one of us on the Leadership Team to sit down and discuss those. We have tried to answer the most frequent questions people will have, but if your question has not been answered we would love to have the opportunity to do that in person.

I hope that you are as excited about this next step of growth and faith for our church as we are! We have a problem at All of Life… but it’s a good problem. God is blessing our church and adding to our numbers, but no matter how many worship gatherings we gather in, our mission remains the same...to Saturate the Inland Northwest and the Nations with the Good News of Jesus .

HELP ON A SERVE TEAM