For the past few months, our leadership team and staff have been in prayer and discernment about what is our next step in helping connect new people to Jesus. We have seen significant growth with our Sunday morning worship experience at 9:30AM. We have regularly worshipped with over a 100 people on Sunday mornings, have on average 30+ children participating in our Journey Starters/Kids ministry, and in total, we have seen 359 first-time guests so far in 2022 on a Sunday morning at The Journey! 

As a result of this growth, many of us have experienced a few pinch points. 

• Our parking lot is full each Sunday with limited parking options in the neighborhood. 
• Our worship center routinely is full and at capacity. 
• Our Journey Starters/Kids ministry is outgrowing their current space. 
• We have 275 active persons in the life of The Journey now. 
• We have seen 379 first-time guests on a Sunday morning. 

As we celebrated our growth (and these incredible problems), we [the leadership team and staff] have discussed, discerned, and determined that a change is needed to continue our vision. We want to continue to see new people connect with liberative nature of Jesus at The Journey, we want to continue to see God becoming famous in the lives of our kids at The Journey, we want to continue being a place of deep belonging and connection for the incredible of first-time guests at The Journey. 

To facilitate future growth and make room for new people in the life of our faith community, we will be transitioning to two in-person worship experiences. Starting on Sunday, November 27 – in 5 weeks – we will officially have two identical in-person Sunday morning worship experiences at The Journey. Our first service will be at 9AM and the second service will be at 11AM. We will continue to be led by our staff in their respective roles; Diana Trout leading worship for both services, Brittney Ross Davis leading our Journey Kids/Starters and, I (Pastor Kris) will continue to provide leadership and be the primary communicator at both services, and we will prioritize our hospitality and connections ministry at both services as well. 

Our hope and deep prayer is that through this change, we are making room for new people to be a part of The Journey faith community. We will be making room for new people in our parking lot, in our worship center, and in our starters/kids ministry. 

We know that your life has been changed because of the faithfulness of The Journey Church. Many of you have found belonging and community with one another through our inclusivity, deep connection with Jesus through worship and small groups, and a community to use your gifts to love other people. We celebrate all that God has done in/through you, and we anticipate the new people who will find Jesus because of this change. To name it honestly, I know there are so many people in/around Harrisburg who are longing for an inclusive and loving faith community like The Journey. As your pastor, I want to make sure we’re doing our part in making sure we’re making room for more people. 

If you’re part of a ministry team (hospitality, tech, worship, kids), you will be hearing from your team leader about how this may impact you. Know that our hope is not to burden you more, but we have plans to invite you to serve as little or as much as you can, so that it continues to be life-giving for you. 

Would you also start thinking right now who is the one new person you will invite to join you for worship on November 27 at either 9AM or 11AM? Who is the person that you’ve been meaning to invite for a while now but haven’t? Or, who is the person who you’ve invited already and has or hasn’t come but you want to make sure to invite them again? I invite you to consider inviting at least one person to join you and sit with you for worship on November 27.