Blake Thompson daht NetI'm just saying….

Hope that ya'll had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!!!!!!!! Andy

Terri, Thanks for the reply. I think yall are doing very well there at The Orchard. I didn't figure Scott or the church would not let someone into a church service, esp Christmas! Thanks again for clearing it up. I hope you and your families have a wonderful Christmas!

Hi Blake This is Terri from the Orchard - one of the ticketing churches. We made the decision to have tickets for our Christmas Eve services since we have had some incredible growth this past year. Our auditorium only holds a limited amount of seats so we decided to do this in case we needed to add another service (which we did) and also to plan for parking issues. We only gave away 80% of our capacity to our members so that we will have room for our guests. We have encouraged everyone to bring a friend and will not turn anyone away! I hope that answers your questions! Merry Christmas!

the only problem with tickets for the services is that the first people that get them are going to be the members of the church... But i don't really think it's a "right and wrong" thing... just a preference.

This has nothing to do with you post--just replying to your comment..Honestly with mercy ships, I think would do short terms stuff with them..volunteering for about 8 monts(I think is the time frame?) I wasn't really planning on doing real long term stuff with them, but you never know. I watched that interview after church sunday..it was good, very encouraging story :)

I can see how having tickets is like having reservations so that nobody arrives to find "no room at the inn", but I would cringe to see anyone who showed up ticketless be turned away from "God's House". The above mentioned more services and no tickets seems a good solution. Reminds me of the year "my" church required reservations for children at Vacation Bible School. Children with no reservations, unaware of the requirement, came and WERE TURNED AWAY. That may have been the beginning of the end of that place for me.

There's always the backyard service - no sign in.

Yea there has been a few churches around here (where I live) that have done that. I'm not sure what I think of it. I mean I understand it too, but at the same time its a outreach...maybe it be alright for the first year...but expect more services next year and no tickets...maybe. Just a thought.

I think it's just a different mindset. I guess it works for them.