For more than one year “Awakening” had filled 100% of the seating capacity of its sanctuary. In the last 6 months there were people who were standing through the services in many occasions. Each one at the church members were excited about “the big” crowd that we were getting every Sunday morning. Despite the excitement for the leadership of “Awakening”
there was a major question that needed to be answered: where do we go from there? Do we accommodate to the present situation and get happy about what we have reached or strive to maintain the steady growth of our congregation. After much prayers and debates the Pastoral Council of “Awakening” decided to offer a second Sunday morning service. Even though we knew that in some ways the congregation will be divided because some people find it more convenient to attend the early service at 9:00 and others the late service at 11:00, we decided to listen to the facts of the church growth statistics who show that if a church does not make room for growth after filling 80 to 85% of its seating capacity it eventually will reach a plateau and stop growing. By having a second morning 
service we made enough room for our church to growth. Now people can walk in the church and find a comfortable seat on both services. For the last 4 months the model was really well accepted by the congregation and proved to work well. We are still to reap the good fruits from that leap of faith.
We still believe that there is as much room for a church to grow as much room as the church is ready to give for growth!Dimitar Luchev (senior pastor)
