A JOINT Large Group Worship Event?

I was in a meeting recently where it was asked, should that church consider doing a weekly large group worship event with another church and the on campus ministry the church helps sponsor.

The simple answer to the question of "Should we do a weekly joint worship event with churches and a campus ministry?" is a good question to ask.  Here are some questions to ask after that question.

WHY would we do a joint service?  If there are not enough students in any of the ministries to make a good crowd, that is a possible answer to having a stronger more appealing event.  WHO would speak, lead or sing at the event?  A joint event sometimes provides the talent to have a worship band that one ministry cannot provide alone.  Often at these joint events, the speaking is rotated between the College Ministers from the sponsoring ministries.  WHAT would be the responsibilities and commitments of each ministry that was a participant or sponsor?  Some such events have run into difficulty when some of the sponsors felt others were "taking" and not "giving".

One campus based College Minister told me that he had inherited a joint event done by multiple churches and the campus ministry.  He said in the beginning it had been a good thing because there had been ill feelings between the church and campus based ministry and it brought healing to those relationships.  But over a period of time, some of the churches dropped out and it was only one other church and the campus ministry involved.  They decided to each do their own thing and now are reaching more total students separately than they were in their joint event.  He said about 20% of the students attend both events.

Another campus based College Minister told of having a very large joint event with some other campus based ministries and local churches.  But, a huge drawback was they had to agree that they would not promote any of their individual events at the large group event.  One of the concerns was an overpowering set of announcements and announcing conflicting events.  Since the event was sponsored by a variety of campus ministries, there was some variance in doctrinal issues which had to be carefully navigated.  They had a killer band that would play for up to an hour....students loved it......and a significant number of students would leave after the band was done.

Does a joint event make sense for your ministry?  That depends on where your ministry is on its own and what would be accomplished that cannot be accomplished alone?  A joint event is neither a bad idea or a good idea.  It is an idea that might be good in some situations and bad in others.  The conclusion is know WHY you would do it, WHAT your goal is in doing it is AND what are the RULES or understandings that makes it fair and equitable to all involved. Like most things in college ministry, it is not the magic bullet.