In January 2013, we began holding two morning worship
services at Grace Fellowship Church. We were out of room and had to do
something.
We have never been big fans of the double service model. We
think there is an inherent “separating” that takes place when it is
adopted and we were not interested in that. Less we sound like some mega-church
(such a strange name!), we are still not numerically large. Our problem was the
space limitation that restricted our worship services to about 160 people in
our meeting room.
In order to push back against the pressure to become “two,”
we maintained our Sunday evening and Wednesday night services, kept both
services identical in presentation and urged our folks to capitalize on the
overlap period between services. This all helped, but one cannot replace
actually being together.
With this in mind, the elders proposed to our membership
that we close down our morning worship services for a while… and replace them
with one morning service at a local high school auditorium. The members were
all for it!
So, beginning this coming Sunday, May 4, 2014, we will be
holding one morning service at the Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School (2 St
Andrews Blvd, Toronto) at 9:30AM.
It has been a number of years since I have felt this excited
about something. That may say more about me than anything else, but I do feel
this is a unique and pivotal time in our church’s history. We have decided not
only to move to the school so we can be together, but we have also dedicated
this season to a concerted evangelistic effort. We want to tell more people about
Jesus Christ and what He has done for them. Therefore, we will be preaching a series
we are simply calling: Good News. And we hope both there and in our daily
conversations to present the Gospel from both testaments.
I have pastored long enough to know that God typically
honours effort. We have tried lots of things in the past, and God always brings
blessing. Pray for us as we attempt to make further inroads into the most
culturally-diverse city in the world and bring the Gospel to the nations. I can
hardly wait to see what God is going to do!
