Afternoon Service

One of the much talked about issue at the moment: Should we vote for a change of service time to afternoon, instead of the current evening time?

Let's go back into history a bit and let's evaluate on the pros and cons.

History
When City Ministry, CM (now known as CLMC) started, the service was in the evening at 5pm. This is because CM was under Camberwell Methodist Church and they have services at 9am, 11am, and 1.30pm. They couldn't really fit in another slot in the morning due to lack of pastor resources.

As CM was like a nomad church, once we moved from different venues to different venues, our service times are started to be affected by the change. We slowly move to 6pm and then the current 7pm after English service took the 5pm slot when it was available.

So up to today, CLMC has 5pm English Service and 7pm Mandarin service, with an exception of 2007 where 1.30pm Mandarin service was introduced briefly.

Pros for afternoon service

• People can finish earlier (around 3pm)
• Public transport would still be plenty
• People won't be hungry during service as they would have eaten before coming
• More free time during evening/night

Cons for afternoon service

• Your whole day are basically "stuck". The service time is in the middle of the day, which made activities with longer hours not possible.
• People normally feel sleepy after having lunch and afternoon is normally nap time
  
• Morning sports session may need to be cancelled as other activities would be pushed to start earlier (eg, choir, Sunday school, etc).
  
• Less free time during the day

Summary
Now that we roughly seen the history, pros and cons. Let's think for a while and see which would be a more appropriate choice?

Some of the things we must consider before making such a big decision are:
1. Who is our target group? Inner city people or suburban? Family oriented or Student oriented?
2. What are we trying to achieve with afternoon or evening service?
3. What differences will the change create?
4. Where do we see our growth from now onwards? Are we outgrowing our capacity where a 2nd service might be needed?
5. How will the change be in line with our church vision & goals?
6. What are some other alternatives or compromise we could implement?
7. What do you really want to achieve from the change?
8. What are your motives in the change? For individual or church benefits?
9. Finally, how would it affect you as an individual with the change or not?

Anyway, since most of us wouldn't think so much. I'm hoping this would encourage most of us to start thinking deeply and ponder on the consequences of on a decision.