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There are two ways to answer this question: pragmatically and doctrinally. 

While the best answer to this question is definitely doctrinal, and I generally avoid pure pragmatics, let me begin by sharing a few practical concerns. 

Back in the 1990s I was in a church in North Carolina that by God’s grace was growing. We were at 75% capacity for years in our Sunday morning worship gatherings. The Pastor called in a church growth consultant (or team) from our State Baptist Convention. They shared with him the well-known research regarding the 75% capacity. In the US, once a church reaches that threshold, the other 25% of seats will almost always remain empty. We Americans like our elbow room! Guests arrive to a “full” room (at least by American cultural standards) and rarely return. If they’re unchurched, the fullness likely makes them a bit nervous. If they’re churched and looking to serve, they likely think this church doesn’t need more people or has few opportunities to serve. From a purely pragmatic perspective, a church at 75% capacity is stuck. Pontooned on a Plateau. Our Pastor in NC took the advice of the consultants and started a second worship service. Same music. Same sermon. Just two different times. Sunday School was sandwiched between an early service and a late service.  

I moved out of area not long after those multiple services began. But, after five years, God graciously allowed me to return as an Associate Pastor. It was clear that in those five intervening years, the church had grown numerically. From a purely numerical perspective, the strategy of having two services worked! More people were, in fact, attending. Indeed, the membership rolls had nearly doubled. So, what’s not to love? What’s not to celebrate? 

I was keenly interested in church growth as an Associate Pastor. I had just completed a Master of Divinity degree in “Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth” at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. So, I sometimes discussed the pros and cons of the decision to offer a second service with the Senior Pastor. When I asked him, in hindsight, whether he would make the same decision again, his answer surprised me. 

“No.” He had no hesitation. “I would have had used the fellowship hall as overflow and live-streamed the service onto the screen.” He detailed the logistical burdens associated with two services and the burn out among volunteers. He clearly believed the decision to go to a second service was not best, even though the fellowship hall overflow plan was also not ideal. But what was done was done, and now the church found itself in a large capital campaign. Within a few years, a multi-million-dollar addition was erected, and a church that had been debt-free for many decades was now enslaved to a bank. But the finances weren’t the primary reason for the Senior Pastor’s regret. His primary regrets were doctrinal. More precisely, ecclesiological. 

He explained to me that, in effect, he was now pastoring two churches. Two congregations. Those attending the early service barely knew those attending the late service. They had, somewhat naturally, gravitated to spending time during the week with those who sat around them in the worship gathering. It complicated and confused the unity of the body. Anyone can see both pragmatics and theology at work here. And while I am not accusing churches who have multiple worship services of sinning by doing so, nor am I saying they’re not good churches, I am saying that the reality is that each service / gathering really becomes a church. And in the case of my North Carolina Senior Pastor, no amount of scheduled church-wide fellowship meals seemed to solve it. Even then, folks sat and ate with those they worshiped with regularly. 

Turns out, the worship assembly really is the hub of unity in the church body. 

Biblically, I believe the case can be made that multiple worship services are actually multiple churches. The Greek word for “church” is ecclesia. It means literally “called out ones.” But the research is solid showing that its use in biblical times and before, as well as its use by Spirit-inspired Bible writers, is more along the lines of an assembly. Or, we might say the church is a “called out assembly” or “called out to assemble.” Jonathan Leeman made this case very persuasively in his book One Assembly: Rethinking the Multisite and Multiservice Church Models. But even without Leeman’s book, we might well have come to this conclusion by a careful reading of the Scriptures. 

Through the writer to the Hebrews, God exhorts Christians, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some” (Heb 10:25). Take note how assembling together is assumed to be the habit of most Christians, just as it is, sadly, the habit of some to neglect it. And to neglect it is disobedient and hurts the church body because it is precisely in the assembly that we provoke one another to love and good works! 

The worship assembly is the hub of the “one another’s.” We have come to think of living out the “one another’s” more in terms of small groups. But I believe healthy small groups flow out of, are down stream of, healthy worship gatherings. A member who only attends a small group, or even a discipleship class, while neglecting the worship assembly, would be spiritually impoverished. Malnourished in the faith. And disjointed from the body.  

The first church certainly believed in the centrality of the worship gathering. Acts 2:42-47 gives a snapshot of a Pentecost-born body that met corporately “day by day” for “the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.” It was the vitality of these worship gatherings that stirred them to love one another so much that they also gathered in each other’s homes where they “received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.” 

A healthy worship assembly is the fountainhead of healthy body life, flowing into tributaries like Sunday School classes, small groups, evangelism outreach, and genuine friendships. The challenge for us is to seek grace in Christ to so order and execute such worship gatherings! The weekly worship gathering is the central identifier of a church. But today we’ve bought into concepts like “One Church, Many Gatherings” or “One Church, Multiple Locations” or “Online Church.” The errors grow more grievous from the former to the latter, in my opinion. 

There’s more to consider than pure pragmatics, you see. Multiple worship services may produce more people in pews, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But, it comes at a price. A doctrinal price. A price the pastors of CBC are not willing to pay.        

So, we prayerfully ponder other options to continue to grow both numerically and spiritually, by God’s grace. The options we gravitate to most include:

• Sending out more missionaries.
• Adopting or partnering with smaller churches for the purpose of gospel revitalization.
• Church planting.
• A capital campaign over many years to allow us to build a larger facility debt-free (this one is last on our list, but not off our list).  

But let me now conclude by circling back to the centrality of the worship gathering. Although I am still deeply saddened by the personal moral failure of Steven Lawson, I remember he used to insist that the church of America today needs more preaching, not less. I believe he was right, assuming the preaching is biblically faithful exposition! If we are going to add worship gatherings, where preaching of the Word is central, however, we ought to do it the old-fashioned way. Add a Sunday evening gathering. A Wednesday evening gathering. And if the Lord so moves the people, maybe a Saturday morning gathering.

Insane! I know.

We’ve modeled our church life today far too much on pure pragmatics. We’re too busy to attend worship gatherings more than once (or if radical) twice a week. It’s too much to expect members to re-prioritize their lives. To re-orient around Christ, His Word, and His Church. Have you ever wondered why the Church and her gospel made such stupendous global progress in its first 200 years, and in the 200 years after the Protestant Reformation? 

Well, there are surely multiple reasons, and God’s sovereign favor is always ultimate. But, it might be worth noting during those special seasons in church history just how regularly worship gatherings centered around the preached Word were held. The Reformers preached their heads off, many times a week! And even into the 1800s, Spurgeon preached 4-5 times a week! To large gatherings. Maybe we can’t go back. 

But, we can refuse to ground worship gatherings in pragmatism or convenience. 

May God keep making us a called-out assembly saved by grace through faith in Christ, covenanted together to know His gospel (heads), to love His gospel (hearts), to live His gospel (hands), and to share His gospel (feet). All for His glory in the Gospel. Amen

by Keith McWhorter