Adding a Saturday Night Service :: 6 Keys to Adding a Saturday Night Service w/ Success
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on “Launching 2 Services” in a church. I have been blown away by the overwhelming response from so many of you. Thanks for passing it on / commenting / reading it / and applying it. We love helping churches be more effective.
This week, I want to write a follow up article because many of you have asked about
At Next Level Church, we do 2 Saturday Night services each week and they are both attended very well and have tremendous momentum. But that didn’t happen by accident.
Here are some Thoughts:
Saturday night services are not easy and, like good marriage vows, “should not be entered into lightly or irreverently…” We did this. Our church was close to 1,000 people in average weekend attendance and 9 years old before we made the jump to Saturday nights. Even though… we had a lot of people asking us for it for several years.
Pastors and Leadership Teams need to be certain God has led them to this. In fact, I have often recommended launching a 3rd Sunday Morning, rather than starting a Saturday night for many churches. Pursue Saturday Nights with Prayerful Caution.
One of THE big things we did right was committed to Saturday Nights 150,000%!!! We knew we needed our entire staff to be ALL IN, if it was ever going to work. I talk to many pastors who can’t seem to gain traction on Saturday night and you hear in their voice, “Well, we didn’t really know if it would work…” or “You know, my staff isn’t really in love with it…”
That will not work! Either you go all in or you will never see the results you’re hoping for. This is what you’re doing! You are now a multi-day church, which means you work on Saturdays. That means your College Football watching will be inhibited, your family time will have to look different, etc. Everyone has to buy into that.
Your Saturday night service must be an IDENTICAL service of your Sunday morning or people will feel like they’re getting a lessor or different “product” and won’t commit to it. For us, we knew our Saturday night services could not be, “Practice” or “Warm Up.” It had to be full on from day 1 so our people didn’t feel slighted and revert back.
I believe we launched our Saturday night services at the right time. We began it the very first week we moved into our new facility and out of the High School we had been in for 5 years. One piece of logic for us was that we were downsizing our seating capacity in the auditorium from 900 seats at the High School to 600 seats in our new facility. So in many ways, it was a necessity.
But it was also a strategic move for us because we knew that in order for our church to serve 2,000 people in our facility we would HAVE to have a Saturday night option.
Let me talk this one through. We moved in and began a Saturday night service in April 2011. We had about 300 people who settled in at that service. Then Sarah and I took a 40 day Sabbatical through the month of June. When we got back in July, we launched our “Big Summer Series” (which we do every year) we also launched our “Try Saturday Night” campaign internally.
We asked everyone who called Next Level Church their home to “Try Saturday Night” at least one time during the 6 weeks of the summer series. Then halfway through the series, we started saying, “Stay Saturday Night.” Now that you’re here, we need you to stay. The most missional thing you can do is give up your seat on Sunday mornings for an unchurched person.”
Our people got it! During that first summer our Saturday night service grew from 300 to 650. It became the biggest attended service of our entire weekend. Which is what we needed it to be, so we could split it in October and go to 2 services on Saturday night.
SIDENOTE: One difficult thing about only having 1 service on Saturday night is that it messes up the “Attend One, Serve One” Culture you’ve created with 2 services on Sundays. This was probably the hardest part! Seriously. Our Volunteer teams thanked us when we finally launched our 2nd Saturday night because it took so much pressure off of them.
(By the way, we launched Saturday night at 5:30pm, and then went to a 4:30 & 6:30pm start time when we split in October 2011.)
Once we added the 2nd Saturday night, our attendance settled in at 650-700 until summer 2012. Each service had a good feel and critical mass but they still had plenty of room for growth.
So, during our “Big Summer Series” this year (2012) we created a brand around Saturday Night (We got this idea from Potential Church in Miami, FL. Thanks Troy and Stephanie!!!) called “The Night Shift.”
For 6 straight weeks, we built awareness and cast vision around “The Night Shift” and our people again, rose to the occasion. We would do fun things on Saturday nights but nothing expensive or difficult. They were little things that went along with our “Seeing Red” series like give away packs of Big Red gum.
We have never bought into the whole, “Serve pizza or a meal every week,” because its not sustainable long term and people don’t care that much about food. They care about options and vision. Give them that.
During the 6 week series, our Saturday nights grew by another 400 people. In fact, 2 of the 6 weeks, we actually had more people on Saturday night then we did on Sunday mornings! It was truly amazing!
To this day, our attendance breakdown is very close to 50/50%. Sundays are sometimes bigger, but not by more than 100 people.
Saturday nights can be done effectively, no matter where you live.
Personal Practicals:
As I mentioned, adding a Saturday night is a Big Deal and will mess with your rhythm personally and the rhythm of your team as well. Here are some Personal Practicals to think through…
- Think through schedules and rhythms for your team.
I would say this is something we didn’t do very well when we first started Saturday nights. The reason why is because our staff was so excited to be apart of something that was growing so fast and had so much momentum that we didn’t want to miss it!
We should have forced our team to think through who needs to be there on what days, etc. Some of your team will have to be there all weekend, but others, maybe not. These are conversations that have to be had.
- I had to shift my schedule.
As a communicator, when we added Saturday night, I had to rethink my personal speaking schedule. In addition to teaching on the weekends at NLC, I speak between 250 and 300 times / year at conferences, trainings, coaching, etc. which is physically taxing and vocally taxing as well.
My personal preaching rhythm used to be 1 in 6. In other words, every 6 weeks, I needed 1 weekend off. Once we added Saturday night, that rhythm went down to 1 in 4. Now, the most I will do is 4 weekends in a row. The burden and weight of carrying a weekend’s worth of services and ministry to people cannot be underestimated. And for me, by the 4th weekend, I’m out. I can feel my enthusiasm and energy wane. I need to not be up there after 4 weeks in a row.
- Think through your Speaking Team.
As I just mentioned, adding a Saturday night and the pressure of a growing church takes its toll on the lead communicator. You’ve got to be diligent and proactive on teaching others on your team how you think about what you do on the weekend. I actually wrote a 3-Part Article on this here on my site a while back. You can read it here.
- Think through your Family Nights and Date Nights.
One of the biggest things that had to shift for our family when we added Saturday night was our family night. Historically, Saturdays had been that. Because I never liked to go out and do something big on Saturdays anyway, it just made sense for those to be our night in with the kids. We’d rent movies, play games, etc.
Once we launched Saturday night services, we had to change that up. We moved our family night to Friday night which then meant Date Night with the wife had to move to Thursday nights. Today, my kids don’t think a thing about it. They love it! From the time we pick them up after school on Friday, we party, hang out, and have fun being family together.
- Fight through the Guilt.
There is not a week that goes by when I’m leaving the house on Saturday afternoon at 2:30pm and my kids are upstairs playing that I don’t feel guilty. I have to fight through that! God is in this, and we have adjusted our family schedule so my kids are not “losing out on dad.” But satan loves to get in my head on this one. Fight that.
- You have to Fight for your Day Off like crazy!!!
Once we added Saturday nights, I felt the pressure big time and Sarah and I quickly learned that if I didn’t have my Friday Day Off, I would feel it through the whole weekend and into the next week as well. Sabbath is not Optional. And if you work on Saturday and Sunday, you HAVE to take time to recharge your battery on another day.
Additionally, I would say that as a family, we have started taking more time off for ourselves to recharge as a family as well. We use all the vacation we get every year and we are very strategic when the kids have breaks from school to be together and recharge together.
I never want my kids to feel like they were slighted by the ministry. I don’t think they have to, we just have to work hard to be intentional about it.
In conclusion, Saturday nights are an incredible way to offer more opportunities to serve people. And when done effectively, can catalyze the growth of your church.
? What experience do you have with Saturday night church? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
#AddingValue