Bland. Boring. Listless. You never want your members to leave with those thoughts about your Sunday service.

I want colour, life, presence, joy and laughter. Sunday is a primary gathering point for your church and an important entry point for new people.

When services lack life, I would look at prayer, Scripture, relationships and leadership as well as the practical details. Here are eight areas worth examining with your team.

Key Takeaways

• Keep announcements focused so they don’t crowd out the purpose of the gathering.
• Give Scripture and prayer a prominent place in the service and your preparation.
• Build connections before the service and prepare your volunteers together.
• Address conflict and accumulated pastoral exhaustion.
• Use a clear run sheet and rehearse transitions so each part serves the whole.

1. Overload of Announcements

I am not a fan of announcements during the Sunday service.

They remind me of cinema advertising.

Have you ever gone to a movie to watch the ads?

You endure the ads, watch an enthralling or occasionally boring movie for two hours and head home without one single thought about the ad you saw two hours earlier.

They are long gone.

Similarly, on Sunday, churches spend 5 – 10 mins promoting events. Hours are spent on producing video news or designing stimulating graphics.

I will grant you that some church-wide events need platform exposure however I think it can be a lazy way to boost church events and programs.

A good exercise for pastors and teams is to analyse the different channels church members use for communication to focus their promotional efforts.

For instance, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, text, WhatsApp and email are primary methods of communication today.

How do your members use these methods?

How could you connect more effectively through these channels?

Remember, the more you announce the less people listen.

2. Not Enough Bible

The Bible changed my life.

Without its wisdom, I would have lived a poorer, less purposeful life.

The Bible changes your church.

Without its stories, we would not know Christ and His cross.

Without its guidance, we wander in the dark like a drunken fool.

Therefore, the Bible must feature prominently in our services. It should be properly utilised during communion, offering talks, worship and preaching.

Preaching without a focus on the Scriptures becomes just another Ted talk, relying on humanistic endeavours to move people to change.

Effective Bible-focussed preaching draws people to Christ and the Word of God, giving them a hunger for His word.

I have a personal preference for preaching that is passage-based rather than a topical approach that jumps from one text to another.

Why do I prefer this method?

Preaching a passage of Scripture forces the preacher to dig deeper and contemplate the context, the back story not just the topic.

It also demonstrates how people should handle Scripture within its context and with an awareness of the back story.

How much Bible was in your recent sermon series?

How could you raise the prominence of the Bible in your Sunday service?

3. Too Little Prayer

When I consult with church leaders, I ask them: “Where do you need to grow?”

The most frequent answer is, “In my personal walk with Christ.”

In my consulting work, I’ve discovered that church leaders struggle with prayer.

Prayer is the doorway into a relationship with Christ and the anointing we need to serve the Lord. If we are prayerless how will Christ accomplish His work in building the church?

Prayer is also a cornerstone of church life especially services.

When a pastor is prayerless a congregation will be prayerless.

I visited the stunning Pompeii ruins a few years ago.

One thing that struck me was the ruts in the cobblestone roads created by the wheels of chariots and wagons.

The deep grooves were worn into the cobblestones by the daily trekking of merchants, travellers and locals.

Pastors and church leaders must be diligent in building similar grooves of consistent habits of prayer and waiting on the Lord.

Through my Christian life I’ve developed prayer habits that supported me, and enabled me to survive the glorious and horrendous seasons I experienced as a pastor.

My prayer habits are established around a set time and a set place.

My time is in the morning.

My place is in my study.

This routine is ingrained in me. I’ve developed a groove that’s well-worn into my lifestyle.

A lack of prayer will deliver you a service that lacks punch.

4. No Connections Before Your Sunday Services

One tactic that healthy churches add to their Sunday routine is multiple pre-service connections.

This has a few elements.

Firstly, offer coffee connections before the service.

Opening hospitality 30 minutes before the service gives people an opportunity to come early and connect.

It might just be a few but that coffee connect moment adds a good vibe to the pre-service.

You can maximise this time by ensuring a pastoral care person is lingering (with coffee) to check in with people, pray for any needs and generally be a shepherding presence.

Second, talk through the run sheet with key people involved in the service.

Pay special attention to transition moments in the service when you move from one key element to the next. Ensure everyone is in unity and is aware of the focal points of the service.

Third, pray. Yes, prayer together is vital. Gather as many volunteers as possible and pray for the service. I prefer to do this in the auditorium for about 10 mins.

Fourth, thank and boost your volunteers. During this prayer time remember to appreciate your volunteers and give them a small pep talk on the why of the service. You can build that encouragement beyond Sunday with regular volunteer meetings that equip and appreciate your team.

5. Rolling Conflict

Disunity and unforgiveness will quench the Holy Spirit faster than the kids will gobble up the desserts at a church potluck.

Back in the 1970s, our church suffered a fractious split that irreparably damaged lives.

Our Sunday services were chaotic throughout this period. They became battlegrounds for different factions rather than opportunities to gather as a family.

The crescendo moment was when we arrived at church one morning and the grand piano had disappeared along with a chunk of the congregation.

Sad days.

Paul reminds us to guard the unity created by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:3).

Working through church conflict matters. Leaders must actively protect the relational environment in their church otherwise services will lack punch and repel members and even worse visitors.

6. Pastoral Exhaustion

Sunday services tend to lack punch if the pastor is weary and exhausted.

Every pastor feels tired almost every week so I’m not talking about regulation tiredness but accumulated fatigue.

There are a multitude of reasons why pastors are exhausted:

• ongoing relational conflicts
• lack of personal boundaries
• poor management of days off
• never going on holidays
• ill health
• lack of energizing, positive distractions

When a pastor lacks energy, the Sunday service suffers. A four-week break can be a useful starting point.

Restoring a pastor’s emotional energy and spiritual strength must be a priority even above the Sunday service. For a practical example of preparing the church for extended leave, read about Brian Webber’s experience of pastoral leave.

7. Disorganised Leadership

Pastors of small and medium size churches make this repeated mistake.

They hear pastors of large churches talking about a last-minute culture or how they switched things around in the Sunday services with little notice.

Pastors assume this is how you should operate on a Sunday.

They forget that large churches have multiple layers of staff and teams (read volunteers giving their time freely) to cope with the disorganisation that this style of leadership creates.

I am a fan of keeping leaders on their toes by pulling some surprises, however, you must know what your team can cope with before sailing into these waters.

It’s far better to be super organised and then occasionally switch things up than to be a chaotic leader whose last-minute culture is produced by laziness or procrastination.

Chaotic leaders create chaos. They are disorganized and leave chaos in their wake.

Organized leaders create calm. They are orderly and purposeful.

8. Sloppy Transitions

Transitions are crucial moments in your service. They can add punch or detract from your focus.

The two primary transitions are from worship to ‘family time’ and then to preaching.

Moving from the worship time to the next segment of what I call ‘family time’. During ‘family time’ we pray, make announcements, cast vision, receive the offering, celebrate occasions and so on.

We then move from ‘family time’ to preaching.

Then there are multiple transitions within these segments.

Sloppy transitions occur for multiple reasons, but they can be avoided.

Music and singing occupy a significant part of our services. I think that sense of flow should also inform how we lead transitions.

What can you do to avoid sloppy transitions?

Pray – soak your transitions in prayer. We soak the other elements of our services in prayer and we should approach our transitions with the same diligence. How many services have been derailed by poorly led transitions?

Holistic – see the service as one entity. Whenever the worship leader, service leader or preacher treats their segment as the standalone main event they neglect to read the mood of the meeting.

Run sheet – a simple run sheet shows clearly what’s coming next and who’s doing it.

Rehearse – rehearse your transitions. Don’t leave them to chance.

What else do you think robs services of the punch they need to transform people into the image of Christ?

Frequently asked questions about improving Sunday services

Where should I start if our Sunday service feels flat?

I would review the service with your team. Look at prayer, the place of Scripture, connections before the service and the transitions between segments. Choose one area to improve first.

Should we remove every announcement?

No. I recognise that some church-wide events need platform exposure. Be selective, and use the communication channels your members actually use for the other details. The more you announce, the less people listen.

Does planning leave room for the Holy Spirit?

I see value in prayerful preparation and clear organisation. Make sure your team knows what is happening and understands the service as a whole. You can adjust the plan while remaining aware of what your volunteers can manage.

How can we improve transitions?

I recommend praying about them, using a simple run sheet and rehearsing who does what next. Ask each leader to pay attention to the whole gathering, rather than treating their segment as a separate event.

Can a small church apply these ideas?

Yes. Prayer, Scripture, warm connections, a clear run sheet and appreciation for volunteers are practical starting points. Work with the team you have, and avoid copying the last-minute changes of a church with far more staff and volunteers.