Should churches add services during the workweek to accommodate people’s busy weekend schedules? A clip posted on social media Monday from a sermon given by James Griffin, a pastor in Georgia, is generating discussion online in response to that question.
“Some people have crazy work schedules and we’ve got first responders, and we’ve got people that work at different factories around town, and…I get that,” said James Griffin, lead pastor of Crosspoint City Church, which has multiple locations in Northwest Georgia. “Some of us, we travel on the weekends for various things. [We’ve] got travel sports on the weekends. I think [for] some people, it’s just laziness, but that’s a different message for a different time.”
The polemical news site Protestia posted a clip of Griffin’s comments, which the pastor made in the context of a sermon he preached in July 2021 about a biblical view of church and in which he exhorted congregants not to neglect gathering together. Later in the clip, Griffin explained that his church decided to add a Thursday night service to accommodate people who can’t make it to church on the weekend for various reasons; church leaders have since been offering their thoughts on why such a step might or might not be beneficial.
“We can give people their weekends back”
Crosspoint City Church pastor James Griffin reveals they’ve added a Thursday evening church service so that families who travel on the weekend for kids sports or want to go camping can still attend more than twice a month.#Lordsday pic.twitter.com/O9ePdAYKnv
— Protestia (@Protestia) August 19, 2024
Pastor James Griffin Offers Solution to People’s Busy Weekends
“According to the latest church statistics, the average church member…only attends the gatherings twice a month,” said Pastor James Griffin, pointing out that if the church attendees he mentioned were to be graded, attending church 50% of the time meant that they were failing. He then acknowledged that “there are many factors that contribute” to people missing church, such as traveling or their children’s sports commitments.
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Because of the “many contributing factors,” Crosspoint City Church leaders decided during the previous August to add a Thursday night service for people who were unable to make it to church on the weekends. Griffin said the elders and church leaders took into account a culture that no longer sees Sunday as a “sacred day” but rather as “just another day.”
“And we can whine about it and complain about it and try to fight against it, or we can just beat culture at its own game,” said the pastor. “And so let’s do that. Let’s start a gathering on a weird day at a really weird time so that we can give people their weekends back and they can still be in church.”
Griffin expressed appreciation for first responders and factory workers, whose jobs prevent them from attending church on the weekend, and also acknowledged people who are missing Sunday services because of travel sports or camping. He exhorted such people to “show up” instead for church on Thursday nights. “Why?” he asked. “Because the gathering is that important.”
The clip of Griffin’s comments has prompted a variety of responses from church leaders, some of whom said that adding a weekday service was simply practical and some of whom expressed reservations about taking such a step.
“We did this because we have a large number of attendees who are in law enforcement, active duty military, and border patrol who often cannot attend on Sunday,” commented user Bud Brown, whose X profile says he has been a pastor for 13 years.