The service gospel continues to spread, and it's reaching some unlikely places - such as your neighborhood church. We're accustomed to hearing about how important it is for businesses and other service organizations to survey their customers. But churches? It makes sense, because they do provide a number of services (no pun intended) to their congregations, and if those services are unsatisfactory, people may go elsewhere.One church that is using research to meet the needs of its congregation is Rosewood Church, a Christian Reformed church located in Bellflower, California, a inner-ring, middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.Tim Kauffman, associate pastor, says that for the past five years the church has been undergoing a revitalization effort to draw new congregation members and spark the interest of current ones.A key to that effort has been adding a contemporary worship service to the traditional service. Kauffman says that while the pastor's message is the same for both services, there are a number of differences between the contemporary and traditional services. In the traditional service, hymns are sung from song books accompanied by an organ. The contemporary service is upbeat, with praise music sung to a band featuring a synthesizer, guitar, bass and drums."In the traditional service the focus is on paying homage to an awesome God. The focus is more toward experiencing the presence of Jesus in the second service. It's a whole different mix of the ways you experience God in worship," Kauffman says.
Though the contemporary service has been quite successful, it has brought about some controversy, so the church administration decided to survey the congregation to get a handle on people's attitudes and opinions.
"We came to a juncture where we had to make some decisions about our direction because the attendance at the contemporary service increased quite a bit and the traditional service decreased. We wa...