Thu, May 9, 8:02 AM
Hey family!
I have a quick update for you, and I’ll put the TL;DR at the beginning instead of the end this time!
Starting June 9, we will be adjusting our gathering times to 9:00AM and 11:00AM.
When we first got to Eastside in 2023, our gathering times were originally set to make sure our setup and worship teams had enough time to set up as we settled into our new Eastside home from Westover. We think we can be ready in time now and so want to shift this back 15 minutes. Changing the times will honestly help our team, our volunteers, and our church in several ways. One, those times are just more normal for people to remember! But, a few of the important reasons for the shift are:
- Convenience. This shift will end our second gathering to a 12:30 PM end-time will help our tear-down team be able to leave just slightly earlier, which will serve them, and also allow people to more naturally step out a bit earlier for a more regular brunch/lunch time.
- Helping our kids ministry. Our kids ministry is experiencing many full rooms during the 9:15AM gathering and this shift will serve our volunteers, families, and kids with a more accommodating and safer space, which leads to our last reason:
- Eastside Space. As you may have noticed, the challenge with our growth has been gathering space, but more specifically parking space at Eastside. The reality is that we are in need of more room for our 9:15AM gathering with parking, and we hope that making the second gathering time a little more attractive can help some of us, or future people to the 11:00AM gathering. We want to accommodate growth while also having the lens of having gathering spaces that are welcoming to our first time guests and visitors as well.
“Okay, thanks for the update, now what?”
If you’re not serving on a serving team, don’t have any kids, or, without any major accessibility issues, I’d like to invite a couple of things to think about:
- Consider helping us out by shifting over to the 11:00AM gathering in order to serve our volunteers, our new guests, visitors, and kids ministry. This is an easy way to “Love one another with brotherly affection…" (Rom. 12:10). While this may not be an issue during the summer (with traveling, college students gone, us planting another church this month, etc.), it likely will be in the fall if we grow at all. So we’re preparing for this!
- We’d really encourage you to come early if possible. If I'm honest, this has nothing to do with time change or space issues! But it is for outreach and connection. Guests, newcomers, and those less connected ironically tend to be the earlier ones to church. If you arrive earlier, you can better welcome our new visitors and guests! We want you and others to experience Sundays as a place where you can worship God (Acts 2:47) and stir up one another to love and good works (Heb 10:24-25). We want to welcome them as Christ has welcomed us (Rom. 15:7). Being on time (early!) helps you and others experience fellowship and connection, those being one of the important worship elements that is often underlooked.
If you decide to remain at the 9:00AM, please try and default to parking spaces that aren’t in the main parking lot of Eastside (see image below.)
Moving our gatherings back by 15 minutes is a small but big change. We genuinely hope this shift can allow us to be a church that continues to be welcoming and for others to find community!
It’s a privilege to serve alongside each of you as we make these adjustments for our church family, and as we reach and love one another.
I love you all.
Tory
