When We Go Back to Public Worship, Will We be Ready?

Some of us have been launching new public worship services (and coaching others to do so) for many years now. For every new church, there is that day when it launches public worship: when it goes live and public. In the church planting community, we have learned all sorts of best practices for launching well. We know the pitfalls and potholes that will sabotage a public launch. We also know the possibilities. Until now, this conversation has been limited mostly to church planters and their teams.

But, 2020 is an unusual year, in more ways than we could possibly count. Among these, almost every church has closed its building on Sunday mornings starting in March 2020, and this could go on for weeks or months. The longer it goes, the more critical it will be for us to relaunch public worship really well.

So, your Path 1 New Church Starts team at Discipleship Ministries is busy this week developing a means to bring all of us into the conversation on how to relaunch public worship well. We are thinking about the lead-up to the launch Sunday, about invitation, about kicking off with a relevant sermon series, about designing something fresh – and not simply picking up where we left off. In these unprecedented times, we are all asking our members, friends, and neighbors, “How are you doing? What do you need? How can we help?” If we listen well in this season, it is likely that what we launch will be different in some respects than what last occurred in our sanctuaries.

In the next week, we will be saying more about ways that we can loop you into the conversation – so that your church can seize upon this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reintroduce itself to your community and to launch well!