The Chapel of the Cross is blessed with two handsome historic places of worship. Discussions among the full long-range planning committee regarding worship within these sacred spaces elicited a very animated and heart-felt exchange that endorsed the substantial characteristics of our present four Sunday services but also provided some key insights and made some useful suggestions:

Possible improvements in our Sunday services of worship:

* 7:30 a.m., Rite I in the Chapel. There was an appreciation for the quiet nature of this said service. No changes were contemplated other than perhaps having service leaflets.

* 9:00 am, mostly Rite II in the Church. This service is consistently the largest regular parish service, with attendance approaching the theoretical regular maximum seating capacity of 75% of full capacity (nave 330 x .75 = 248). There is concern for the tight schedule causing frequent overlapping with the Christian Education time, and other comments addressed a desire for more opportunities for children. While there is significant happiness with our great tradition of the junior choir at this service, some felt that the style of this service is often a ‘junior choir' version of the 11:15 service, and that a fuller range of stylistic options could be investigated. Some persons expressed the sense that older youth tend to ‘age out' of this service because of younger average age of the junior choir and that perhaps an older youth choir could be developed.

* 11:15 a.m., mostly Rite I in the Church. This service has been successfully adjusted within the last year to include Holy Eucharist every Sunday as a regular part of the service on Morning Prayer Sundays. There is a strong affirmation of the use of traditional Anglican choral music at this service, but a small yet vocal number who wished for a more frequent use of Rite II. This service regularly runs 30 to 40 people short of the theoretical 75% maximum, and therefore has the potential for growth. This service is the one most likely to be attended on Sunday mornings by visitors and by students, which calls for a thorough reassessment of the whole matter of greeting and making people feel welcome before, during, and after the service. There is a strong desire to increase the intentional visibility of young families, singles, and college age students as greeters, ushers, lectors, servers, and choristers on every Sunday at 11:15 a.m. to build a ‘critical mass' of additional younger people at this service.

* 5:15 p.m., Rite II in the Chapel. This service has had the largest growth of our four Sunday Eucharists in recent years, with attendance frequently exceeding the 90-person practical maximum capacity of the Chapel. There is a strong feeling that the chapel space itself and simplicity of the service were core ingredients in meeting the needs of the 5:15 p.m. constituency and that moving this service to the big church was not a viable option.

Increasing seating capacity for worship:

The 1848 Chapel can seat about 130 persons, and the 1925 Church seats about 330 in the nave and transepts. As mentioned, the 5:15 p.m. Sunday service is frequently approaching the theoretical capacity in the Chapel, and 9:00 a.m. is approaching this capacity in the Church. The Church has major crowding problems on Christmas Eve (especially the pageants), at both services on Easter morning, and certain other occasions such as funerals where people stand alongside both side walls of the nave totaling more than 450 persons.

There have been numerous discussions about adding to the capacity of the church, such as adding a balcony, lengthening the nave, adding a narthex by the front door, and adding a multipurpose overflow room off the right transept. All would be costly and would change the space in ways that were not always desired. However, there was a clear consensus on the long-range planning committee that adding more services at other times or using the church and chapel at the same time could allow for more attendance capacity. It would also permit widening the diversity of worship within the parish without altering the characteristics of the present services. The cost of this, rather than architectural, would be possible increase in staff.