Worship Forum pt3 (10:30am)

There were 50 people who stayed for the forum.

Reflections on what brings you to this service:
Sunday school hour at 9:00; Choir; Music; Ushering; Organist; Traditional format; Sanctuary; Traditions from childhood to adulthood

· Communion table is missed, the rails, the centerpiece of the service is no longer in place.
· Hope was expressed that we, as a congregation can journey back together ( the 2 services)
· Children’s moment is missed, however there still is a children’s moment is the first Sunday of the month
· Some expressed that she miss the continuity of all generations being under one roof.
· With the three services some have felt more isolated.
· What brought people to Trinity was a family oriented congregation and what will keep people here is the family oriented service
· Some expressed their dislike the division
· Some found the 9am service more uplifting
· Worship committee expressed that they are trying to meet everyone’s needs.
· Trying different services, try blended service every once in a while to see how this venue would be accepted.
· Concerns were expressed that with the physical separation can Trinity continue to grow and survive.
· A roundtable discussion was suggested to get both 9 AM and 10:30 service participants together to openly discuss the direction that Trinity should take for the future.
· Mixture of styles
· A lot of churches have multiple services for the main reason that there are different ways to worship. The services at Trinity are both working in the same direction, but moving in parallel. Our challenge is how can we make this work with multiple services? People miss seeing congregants that they have seen for years.
· Some expressed that combining the services in a blended service may not be the answer because then everyone needs to compromise the way that people worship. Traditionalists will not be happy and the contemporary congregants will not be happy.
· These services are an opportunity to reach out to all people of Grand Island. Multiple services give us an opportunity to teach God’s love to our community, adhere to our Mission statement as a church.
· If we blend services we are going to lose some new attendees that have come to like one or the other service.
· Both services fill a need and we should look toward ways to bring both services together in joint social gatherings.
· Demographics need to be looked at to attract more people to the church, what are the possibilities for leadership, financial issues also need to be considered.
· There is room in the main sanctuary for all services to be held in the new building.
· Points were brought up that exactly what is it that draws people to the service, time, building, tradition vs. contemporary service. Congregants need to do some soul searching on exactly what brings them to Trinity. What would happen if the traditional were moved to Historic Trinity? , would people still go, is it the format, or time, building, exactly what is it that draws people to their particular service.
· Youth participation needs to be taken seriously into consideration, also adult Sunday School and participation. Issues of youth fluctuate, wax and wane, we are going through a transitional time. The youth are not coming because the parents are not coming, we need to join the families together and give the parents something to do during the SS hour, for both youth and adults.
· We need to look at the entire spiritual growth of all members, mentoring to new people.

What are people willing to change or to give up?
· Some would give up everything………..the level of attendance at the 10:30 service is drastically down. We need to start with the 225 people that were here today and build off that. Do we hold on to traditions or new service so much that we miss the big picture of Trinity surviving.
· We need to take a hard look at how welcoming we are as a church, make people feel welcome. We will lose people if we miss that opportunity to make people welcome.
· Hard issues of reality, sporting issues for youth, other activities, no one is really responsible but it makes it difficult for families of youth to consistently attend church.
· Are we losing the younger generation? How can we get the youth to get a meaningful worship experience. The fact of the matter is, is that youth are not coming to church. If they would attend a service it would be the 9 AM service then they could attend Sunday School after the 9 AM service. That does not seem to be happening.
· This is a starting point, we need to see which problems we can solve and which ones we can’t. In churches that are overflowing and need to provide a second service, they see that there is a reason for it. What has happened here is that we started a new service for a need of diversity, but we have lost some of vitality at the 10:30 service and it is dwindling and slowly dying.

We have the best location for walkers, it is natural best place for people to start coming to church from all of the apartment buildings nearby.