As far as a better way to run Sunday morning services/church, I don't have the exact answer because I haven't lived to experience it, but I think one idea that might be more effective than just having preaching is to have separate topic/task-oriented groups going during the normal service time. One group could be teaching people how to play musical instruments and sharing worship ideas. Another group could have a team set up for going into the community and blessing people. Yet another group could be set aside for fellowship (and have food and/or games). And the pastor could have his own group to preach his sermon to. The concept behind this is that not everyone needs the same things at the same times, and in order to be more efficient and have the Kingdom flowing more effectively, we could adjust how things are run to meet more of the Body's needs. Some people work a lot and so aren't able to spend time with other Christians during the week, and so would benefit the most from having fellowship on Sunday morning. Some people are itching to minister in the community and only have Sunday free to be able to do so. Some people would benefit the most from learning skills that they could use to serve God in new ways. And, of course, some people enjoy and need spiritual messages and a Sunday sermon can help meet that need.
As far as making sure everyone is able to hear the pastor's sermon for the week, the pastor could accomplish this by having his sermon recorded and put online. And with the smaller group on Sunday morning, the pastor could open up the service to question and answer at the end. Being able to have question-and-answer sessions could add a lot of spiritual learning to people on Sunday mornings. This could also be done with the online version, through people being able to post responses to the sermons online. This could even help future viewers of the sermon because they could see the group discussion online and be able to learn from it.
Even an incredibly smaller change to Sunday mornings that could happen to makes things more effective: the pastor could have some of the other pastors/trusted laypeople also be giving different messages in different rooms of the church every Sunday, and that way people could go to the message that might benefit them the most. The head pastor could even ask the church body to submit their potential sermons to the pastor if they felt they had a good message. If the pastor liked the sermon, he could have the person who submitted it preach it on a coming Sunday. This would make it so that the pastor didn't have to limit himself to his own knowledge.
And there could still be corporate worship and possibly a corporate fellowship portion to every Sunday morning as well; this would give people time to come together as a full body so that we have that dynamic still going.
The basis for these ideas is that science/research has shown that learning typically happens best when people are actively involved in the learning process. As well, people are individuals and all need different words and interactions at different times in order to gain the understandings they need. Especially with a church that has a large attendance, many people get passed over every Sunday morning because the message the pastor preaches is not what they need. While they can possibly glean something useful from it if they try hard enough, this ignores the bigger problem at hand: they shouldn't have to. It's like watching the same movie over and over and trying to get an incredibly different experience from it. While small details that may have been missed can be picked up, it would be much more beneficial to pop in a new movie to get a new experience to take in. A greater amount of ideas can be shared if more than one group/message is going during Sunday mornings.
The choice to make learning more interactive/hands-on (and ultimately, getting much of the congregation actively involved) is important. Many hands means more people are engaged. Many hands means many needs can be met. Many hands means that the great diversity/variety that God wants to flourish in the Body of Christ can flourish.
As an end note, I want to say that none of this is meant as an offense against pastors. I want to see the Kingdom be as blessed as it can be. And so I hope these ideas are fuel to help us reach an even higher level than we, as a Body, have been before.
"11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV 1984)
As far as making sure everyone is able to hear the pastor's sermon for the week, the pastor could accomplish this by having his sermon recorded and put online. And with the smaller group on Sunday morning, the pastor could open up the service to question and answer at the end. Being able to have question-and-answer sessions could add a lot of spiritual learning to people on Sunday mornings. This could also be done with the online version, through people being able to post responses to the sermons online. This could even help future viewers of the sermon because they could see the group discussion online and be able to learn from it.
Even an incredibly smaller change to Sunday mornings that could happen to makes things more effective: the pastor could have some of the other pastors/trusted laypeople also be giving different messages in different rooms of the church every Sunday, and that way people could go to the message that might benefit them the most. The head pastor could even ask the church body to submit their potential sermons to the pastor if they felt they had a good message. If the pastor liked the sermon, he could have the person who submitted it preach it on a coming Sunday. This would make it so that the pastor didn't have to limit himself to his own knowledge.
And there could still be corporate worship and possibly a corporate fellowship portion to every Sunday morning as well; this would give people time to come together as a full body so that we have that dynamic still going.
The basis for these ideas is that science/research has shown that learning typically happens best when people are actively involved in the learning process. As well, people are individuals and all need different words and interactions at different times in order to gain the understandings they need. Especially with a church that has a large attendance, many people get passed over every Sunday morning because the message the pastor preaches is not what they need. While they can possibly glean something useful from it if they try hard enough, this ignores the bigger problem at hand: they shouldn't have to. It's like watching the same movie over and over and trying to get an incredibly different experience from it. While small details that may have been missed can be picked up, it would be much more beneficial to pop in a new movie to get a new experience to take in. A greater amount of ideas can be shared if more than one group/message is going during Sunday mornings.
The choice to make learning more interactive/hands-on (and ultimately, getting much of the congregation actively involved) is important. Many hands means more people are engaged. Many hands means many needs can be met. Many hands means that the great diversity/variety that God wants to flourish in the Body of Christ can flourish.
As an end note, I want to say that none of this is meant as an offense against pastors. I want to see the Kingdom be as blessed as it can be. And so I hope these ideas are fuel to help us reach an even higher level than we, as a Body, have been before.
"11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV 1984)
