It’s difficult to get a non-Christian or immature Christian to sit longer than an hour. They just will not do it.
If you want to win hearts and minds (aka souls) for Christ then you need to deliver the message in a format they’ll accept. It can still be a biblically correct message and be done within 1 hour.
Once people grow in their relationship with Christ they will develop a hunger for more.
A lot of churches that have services lasting 1:00 to 1:15 also have extensive Sunday School programs for all ages and encourage people to join small groups.
This is especially true for churches that have more than one service because the sanctuary can’t seat all the attendees at one time.
A church service that goes for two hours probably only has one service and not a lot in the way of Sunday School; and especially adult Sunday School.
Uh. Come to my synagogue. We usually go three hours plus on Saturday mornings. (Of course most of the folks only show up toward the end!)
ML/NJ
>>>It’s difficult to get a non-Christian or immature Christian to sit longer than an hour. They just will not do it.
If you want to win hearts and minds (aka souls) for Christ then you need to deliver the message in a format they’ll accept. It can still be a biblically correct message and be done within 1 hour.
Once people grow in their relationship with Christ they will develop a hunger for more.<<<
You are probably right about attention spans. However, the purpose of church services is to honor God first and edify His saints, second.
I think a big problem is that most churches have made evangelism (and often a soft, wishy washy, worldly form of it) a primary function of church services. As a result, church services are being designed to appeal to unsaved, unregerate, carnally minded people.
Reading the Bible, you will see that nearly all evangelism was done outside of church services. I believe that is the way it should be today.
It is not only the fault of the modern “Seeker Sensitive” movement. Reformed churches who made many great strides towards returning to the Biblical faith, but held on to the Roman Catholic error of baptizing babies into the church and taught and warped version of the doctrine of the visible and invisible church started the problem. For centuries, European, mainline protestant churches have been dominated by unsaved “members” as a result of this false doctrine.
The church is for born again BELIEVERS. Unbelieving visitors are fine and good, but only those who belong to Christ should be allowed to be members or have any influence over how a church is run.
The Gospel should be preached in church for visitors and to remind believers of it, but services should be designed to honor and glorify God. There is perhaps no more powerful evangelistic tool than unbelievers hearing about the Glory of God, His Holiness, His Mercy, etc., and our sinfulness and unworthiness, both in sermons and in song. We are supposed to magnify the Lord , not attempt to shrink Him down to a size that a carnal mind can handle.