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Help!  Do You Know of Any Large Churches Who’ve Recently Added Saturday Night Services?

Orginally published on Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 1:01 PM
by Todd Rhoades

I've been asked by my friend and fellow Leadership Network colleague to pass on this question. We're looking for any large churches that used to hold Sunday only services that have recently added a Saturday night service. There is a church of a couple thousand who is hoping to make the leap, and would like to talk with similar churches who have already done so. Are there any churches in your area who fit into this category? If so, could you please help?

And, one more thing; while we’re on the topic of “Saturday Night” services… Does your church (or are there churches in your area who) have a Saturday night service?  How well are they attended?  Are they strong or week in your community?

Please take a couple moments to share your leads and experiences.

Warren thanks you.  I think you… the whole world thanks you (well, at least a few of us in the world appreciate it!) smile

Thanks,

Todd


This post has been viewed 9535 times so far.


  There are 47 Comments:

  • Posted by

    Our church used to have Saturday night service as our only weekend service.  I believe we were the only ones in the community doing this.  However, we are not a large congregation, and we had so many of our people with conflicts with school sporting events much of the year, that it was taking too big of a toll on attendance.  We have returned to Sunday morning, but hope to revisit this again someday as we grow.

  • Posted by Dave Kendall

    My church isn’t a “large” one (around 400), at least not by “megachurch” standards, but we are in the same boat- we are looking into adding a Saturday night service sometime in the next year or so.

    We’re located in a rural community an hour east of Cincy so there aren’t many other churches in my immediate vicinity that have Saturday night services, however there are a handful in Cincinnati.  Here are three that i know of: 

    Vineyard- Cincinnati

    Eastside Christian Church

    Crossroads Community Church

    I have attended the first two during a Saturday service and they were both attended pretty well.  Vineyard is probably around 70% capacity.  Eastside interestingly started with a Saturday night service, did away with it for a year or so and then just recently added it back.  I’m not sure the reasoning, but I’m guessing there must have been some growing interest.  I’m happy for the change because it allows me to go and “spy” on them on Saturday night while still attending my home church on Sunday morning.  They had a lower attendance, but considering they just added it a couple months ago, i thought it was a good showing. 

    Anyway, I hope this was a little help.

  • Posted by Jeff Wilson

    We added a Saturday night service just over a year ago due to space needs.  We average around 450-500 in attendance.  That would include adults and students in the service and preschool and children in childcare.  We are evaluating the service next week to see if we feel led to continue it and if so how we can make some changes to increase the attendance.

    We currently average 2800-3000 on a typical weekend.  LifeChurch.tv is our neighbor, so you can say Saturday night services are strong in our community.

  • Posted by Big Chris

    It has been a while since they added Saturday night services, but one that is doing it well is Eagle Brook Church - a multi-site church in Lino Lakes and White Bear Lake Minnesota.  http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/index.html Eagle Brook Church opened their Lino Lakes campus December 3/4th 2005 and have been growing at a remarkable rate.  They had a big campaign before they opened their new campus trying to convince people to move to Saturday night services.  It was called “It’s alright I went Saturday night!” and they had a them song, video and drama presentations to encourage people to move, weekly explanations on why there was a need and so on.  Bob Merritt is the Senior Pastor, Dale Peterson is the Ex. Pastor and Scott Anderson is the Executive Director of Operations.  Since the mid 90’s they have gone from a 300ish person church to this Easter they will push 12-15,000 people I would guess.

    Big Chris
    http://mrclm.blogspot.com

  • Posted by djchuang

    Well, I’ve started indexing churches in the metro Washington DC area that have Saturday night worship services, for the occasions when I want to attend a worship service to accommodate my travel schedule or what not. My list has churches of all sizes, at: http://www.djchuang.com/2006/evening-worship-around-washington-dc/

  • Posted by brett maxwell

    <a href="http://www.eriv.net>Riverview Church</a> near Lansing, MI has 2 Saturday night services and 3 Sunday morning.  The first Saturday service was added 3.5 years ago, and the second a year or two ago.  We have 2000+ each weekend and I would estimate the two Saturday services are at 70% of capacity, whereas two of the Sunday services are at full (or over) capacity.

  • Posted by Dan

    Hey I was going to post, but Brett, fellow Riverviewer, already did. Anyway I met you briefly at the multi-site conference with my co-pastor Noel Heikkinen.  Our saturday services, like Brett said have about 300+ each of the two services.  We’d love to talk to your friend. 
    hope that helps!
    Dan

  • Posted by Steve Hawthorne

    Hey there! I’m worship pastor at a church of 2000 in north jersey. We added a Saturday night service due to space issues about a year ago. While it is growing, it HAS taken some time to catch on. it is currently our second least attended service (the worst being the traditional service). We do a duplication of our contemporary Sunday morning service. Everything is the same, except we need a larger children’s ministry on Saturdays. with that in place, we believe it will take off. We have had a lot of great feedback about it, and have heard many comments about how it helps those with fluctuating schedules, and especially those with kids in sports, etc.

    feel free to drop me a note if you have any questions!

    thanks!

  • Posted by Jan

    The Grove in Riverside, CA has a Saturday 5 p.m. service that used to be very successful.
    http://thegrove.cc/ (haven’t been there in several years)

    Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church also in Riverside, ditched their Saturday service for lack of success.  http://www.magonline.com

  • Posted by Chris

    Waterloo Pentecostal Assembly in Waterloo, ON
    http://www.watpen.org

  • Posted by Jonathan K.

    I live in the Oklahoma City/Edmond area, and while LifeChurch.tv has long had Saturday evening services (two of them), in the past year or so Henderson Hills Baptist (http://www.hhbc.com) has added at least one Saturday evening service, and Victory Church w/Pastor Mark Crow has gone from one Saturday night service to two of them.

    Most recently, People’s Church (http://www.peopleschurch.tv) has added at least one or two Saturday night services, and they have almost 2000 people there, reaching megachurch size.

    Personally, I have friends and acquaintances who attend these churches, but I attend a smaller church of about 120 people in Edmond.  We do not have a Saturday night service, but I know the Saturday night services at the 4 churches I mentioned above are very well-attended, in addition to normal attendance on Sunday mornings.  We are looking to go to double services at some point in the future because of church growth, but that’s a difference subject.

    Blessings,
    Jonathan

  • Posted by Bryan

    We are a church of 650 in worship attendance located in a small town of 4,000 in rural Missouri.  We presently run two Saturday evening services at 5:30 and 7:15 and three Sunday morning services at 8:00, 9:30 and 11:15.  Our auditorium seats about 200-225, so the multiple services are necessary to allow us to grow.  We, too, were somewhat concerned that Saturday evenings wouldn’t catch on since no one else (except the Catholics) does Saturdays in our area, but the first one (5:30) has been wildly successful for more than a year, prompting us to add the 7:15 three weeks ago.  So far, so good.  We’ve made a big deal out of promoting this as a viable option and lots of young families particularly enjoy it so they don’t have to get the kids up another morning of the week.  The Saturday services are identical in content to our 9:30 and 11:15 Sunday services (fully contemporary) and are complete with children’s ministry for all ages.  It’s been a great experiment and very rewarding!  Now we have no idea what we’d do without Saturdays--even if we did have enough space to fit everyone in on Sunday.  The people love it!

  • Posted by Scott

    Our church has done Sat nights for a long time.  But we’ve recently converted it to more of a “coffee house” feel (simple guitar, bongo, bass, singer worship) with round tables, low lights, candles - and more interactive discussion rather than uni-directional message.

    It’s gaining in attendance.  The passion behind the move is to offer journey stop for people to process the gospel into their 7 day-a-week lives.

    We’re not big (200+), but I thought I’d pass along the info.

  • Posted by

    We ( http://www.rivervalleychurch.org ) have been doing a Saturday night service for three years and this weekend we will be adding a second Saturday service because of space issues on Sundays. When we added the Saturday service we faced the staffing and work load issues and gave all of the pastors an extra weekend off each quarter. They are allowed to miss work, but they need to attend at least one service at another church. It keeps them fresh and lets them see other churches.

    Saturdays have been a huge success for us and if you can get the momentum going I say go for it! One other church I know that is doing Saturday nights well is Rock Harbor in California.

  • Posted by Randy Elster

    We tried a Saturday night service without success for a couple of years here at NorthStar Church in metro Atlanta. We ditched it and went back to just three Sunday. I think there are things we would do differently if we tried again. I think it’s best to offer all the programming you have Sunday morning on Saturday night as well...PLUS more. Otherwise Saturday night will be seen as the ugly stepchild of Sunday morning. If you can pull it off, offer two on Saturday night. That way the average attender can attend one of them and serve during the other hour. And back to the PLUS part....do something that makes it compelling for people to come to a Saturday night service vs. Sunday morning, esp. in neighborhoods where this is a new concept.

  • Posted by David Mehrle

    Saturday nights what an interesting issue in churches today.  Do we go Saturday night or do we go multi-site?  I am the student minister in a church that runs around 3200 and yes we have had Saturday night service for about 5years now.  It has taken some time to catch on and we do offer it in a smaller venue than our typical worship services on Sunday morning or Sunday night.  We too have tried the whole coffee house acoustic feel and even some other styles.  However, our crowd has never changed and people continue to come every week.  While we do multi site as well this seems to be a more intimate and casual service than any other that we offer.  It has worked for us largely because we live in a highly catholic community.  When they are looking for a new place to go, offering a service on Saturday night has been good.

  • Hey Todd,

    My church - Nelson/Balfour/Junction Evangelical Covenant Church has a Saturday Service - and it is often our most attended service.  That could also be because it is our most contemporary service.  We are a church of 4 congregation is 3 distinctly different physical locations (20 minutes apart minimum) in the interior of BC, Canada.

  • Posted by

    We are in the process of starting a Saturday night service.
    http://www.mudcreekchurch.org
    contact:

  • Posted by

    Manna Church in Fayetteville NC has Friday, Saturday and Sunday services.  Although the info is a bit old, the pastor one time told those who go to that church NOT to attend other services because there would be no “room at the Inn”.  Another church is Brewster Baptist church in Brewster, MA. both these churches are growing - there is a bit of getting accustom to a ‘non-traditional’ day as well as getting the word out to the general public.  May I venture to add a Sunday Night service as well, or even an afternoon service? Some of the success (if you will) is the type of attendees we have in these areas.  A lot of service industry people work Sunday AM as with the my Brazilian Brothers with whom I fellowship (also attend on “American” church as well).  Their services are Sunday Evening and Monday Evening.  A Spanish Preacher has his services on Tues and Thursday evenings - and no Sunday Services (he has to work on Sunday).  When to keep the Sabboth?......When we can.  Tradition and dictation of only Sunday - that is up to those who are traditionalists.  We have too many people who are taking their kids to football, lacrosse and soccer on Sundays becasue that is their only “day off!” So let’s strike while the iron is hot and preach as Paul wrote “in season and out of season!”

  • Posted by

    We are a church of about 1,200 and we do run a successful 5:00p.m Saturday night service.  We run all of our children’s services/events just like Sunday A.M. and have our youth services afterward.  We are in a bit of a unique situation in that we sit outside of the largest retirement community in the world (so they say).  People come to church and then go out to eat.  The flexibility is a definite plus for retirees who are on the go (traveling, tours, cruises, golf, etc...).  It has been a great social/witnessing tool for a community built on relationships and events.

  • Posted by

    New Testament Baptist Church in Miami is very large.  They recently successfully added a Saturday night service.  The pastor, Dino Pedrone, is a friend of mine.  I do not know the specifics, but he said it is going well.

  • Posted by

    Our church added a Saturday night service about 4 or 5 years ago and it is one of our most well-attended services.  It is a contemporary service that initially started out as an outreach to the unchurched, and I dare say that just about as many of our members and regular attenders are present as are the unchurched.  For many it’s become convenient as they may work on Sundays or have other plans for Sundays, but can still have a weekly worship experience.  Here’s a link to the church website:  http://www.whfriends.org

  • Posted by Don Solin

    Dave,

    There is another one in Cincinnati-- Landmark Church

    Don
    dsolin.mysite.com

  • Posted by

    C3 Church (http://www.c3church.org) is running 5 services each weekend to make room for new people that want to come.  We are running 2 Sat. night services, 2 Sun. morning services and 1 Sun. night service.  We’ve been running the 2 Sat. night services for the last year and we just launched the Sun. night service last month.  Each service has the same worship and message.  Every now and then one of the services will be a video of one of the earlier services to help our Pastor not kill himself.

    Having options is awesome for the people, especially those who have kids.  If I’m not serving on Sun, my family typically goes on Sat. night.  Its great not having to rush around Sun morning trying to get my son ready for church.  Sat. night, most people are already out doing life and don’t have to rush things to get to church.  Its especially great for football season.  Some of my friends are fanatics and now I can invite to come to church Sat. night and they can spend all day Sun. watching football if they want.  To most Christians, this seems stupid, but the world really loves its sport’s teams and I’m just happy I can get them to church any time they’ll go.

  • Posted by

    Larger churches that I know of who are doing Sunday and/or Saturday (or even Friday) night services for multiple reasons.  Some of these church leaders think that their Sunday evening services have a better response, instead of their previous Saturday format.  Some even think that their Friday evening format works best.  Talking with these church leaders about the format and it’s the same for whatever night they pick and three primary factors are driving the evening service(s) 1. Start something new/create an environment of change (culture, new direction, new members, etc, etec) 2. Take pressure off of the other services 3. What time works best for the community, seasons and weather sometimes effect church attendence (Friday or Sunday evening services allow people to have an extended weekend and still attend church)

    One thing of interest is that most of the larger churches in the Coeur d’Alene, ID are have switch to Friday evening and Sunday combination and have dropped the Saturday all together. 

    Also a church in Vancouver, WA has over 6 Saturday services, yes that’s right 6 Saturday services in addition to their Sunday schedule.

    I have a list of additional churches but I had to cut the list at some point.

    So many points of discussion with this topic, I hope you find this helpfull.

    Wade

    Changepoint in Anchorage, AK
    http://www.changepointalaska.com

    New Life Center in Everett, WA
    http://www.newlifecenter.org

    Eastlake Community Church in Kirkland, WA
    http://eastlakecc.com/

    Eastridge Christian Assembly in Issaquah, WA
    http://www.ecaonline.org

    Eastside Foursquare Church in Bothell, WA
    http://www.eastsidechurch.org

    Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell, WA
    http://www.nsb.org

    Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, WA
    http://www.occ.org

    Calvary Fellowship in Seattle, WA
    http://www.calvaryfellowship.org

    Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA
    http://www.marshillchurch.org

    Quest Church in Seattle, WA
    http://www.seattlequest.org

    University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA
    http://www.upc.org

    Grace Community Church in Auburn, WA
    http://www.gccauburn.net

    Highlands Community Church in Renton, WA
    http://www.highlandscc.org

    Northwest Church in Federal Way, WA
    http://account.churchwebworks.com/acct/10664-8591/tmpl/tm222_home.php

    River of Life Fellowship in Kent, WA
    http://www.riveroflifefellowship.org

    Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell, WA
    http://www.chccbw.org

    Gold Creek in Mill Creek, WA
    http://www.goldcreek.org

    Marysville Assembly of God in Marysville, WA
    http://www.marysvillefirst.org

    Mill Creek Foursquare Church in Mill Creek, WA
    http://www.mc4square.org

    Northshore Christian Church in Everett, WA
    http://www.northshorechristian.org

    Calvary Community Church in Sumner, WA
    http://cccsumner.org

    Champions Centre in Tacoma, WA
    http://www.covenantcelebration.org

    Puyallup Foursquare Church in Puyallup, WA
    http://www.puyallupfoursquare.com

    City Harvest Church in Vancouver, WA
    http://www.cityharvestchurch.com

    Grace Foursquare in Camas, WA
    http://www.gracefoursquare.com

    Living Hope Church in Vancouver, WA
    http://www.livinghopechurch.com
    (6 Saturday Services)

    New Heights Church in Vancouver, WA
    http://www.newheights.org/
    (3 Saturday Services)

    Calvary Chapel in Spokane, WA
    http://www.calvaryspokane.com

    Living Water in Olympia, WA
    http://www.livingwater.com

    Christ the King in Bellingham, WA
    http://www.ctkbellingham.com

    Cornwall Church in Bellingham, WA
    http://www.cornwallchurch.com

    North County Christ the King Church in Lynden, WA
    http://www.ncctk.com

    Westside Church in Bend, OR
    http://www.westsidechurch.org

    Salem Alliance Church in Salem, OR
    http://www.salemalliance.org

    Beaverton Christian Church in Beaverton, OR
    http://www.bcc.org

    Beaverton Foursquare Church in Beaverton, OR
    http://www.beavertonfoursquare.org

    City Bible Church in Portland, OR
    http://www.citybiblechurch.org

    East Hill Church in Gresham, OR
    http://www.easthill.org

    Evergreen Christian Church in Hillsboro, OR
    http://eccfoursquare.org

    Good Shepherd Community Church in Boring, OR
    http://www.goodshepherdcc.org

    Southlake Foursquare Church in West Linn, OR
    http://www.southlakechurch.com

    Calvary Chapel in Boise, ID
    http://www.calvarychapelboise.org

    Capital Christian Center in Boise, ID
    http://www.mycapitalchristian.com

    Lake City Community Church in Coeur d’ Alene, ID
    http://www.lakecitycc.org
    (Friday Evening Service)

    New Life Community Church in Hayden, ID
    http://www.newlifeid.com
    (Friday Evening Service)

    Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, ID
    http://www.reallifeministries.com
    (2 Friday Evening Services)

    New Hope Christian Fellowship in Oahu, HI
    http://www.enewhope.org
    (3 Saturday Services)

    Hope Chapel Kaneohe, HI
    http://www.hopechapel.com/home.php
    (1 Friday, 1 Saturday and 2 Sundays)

    Faith Chapel in Billings, MT
    http://www.faithchapel.cc

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