As one of Outreach Magazine’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Churches for the past two years, Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, Illinois aims at keeping pace with all the people God seems to be sending their way. In 2005, the church had run into serious space issues and was seeking a solution to handle the Easter services to accommodate all the people who would attend. They had been holding Easter services offsite at Georgio’s Banquet Hall in Orland Park, which held 1,400 people. The church planned on holding three services in order to make room for everyone.
“Our worship attendance at that time was around 2,400 people in five weekend services, and GROWING! We knew that Easter attendance would be huge based on past trends and our current growth, so we were really nervous about how Georgio’s would work out,” said Karyn Purvis, director of communications for Parkview. “What if 1,800 people all decided to go to the 9:00 AM service on Sunday? That’s when we decided to look into some kind of ticketing system to balance out the services.”
Parkview’s goal of implementing a ticketing system was related to an overall effort to effectively manage their crowds. They do not charge for the tickets—they are merely a way to ensure that there will be enough room for every person at each service.
During the four weeks prior to Easter, Parkview used the bulletin, announcements during the worship services, and their website to explain to the congregation what they were doing and why. “Our congregation immediately got on board, and the vast majority of our people had no problem using the system. We also had a signup sheet at our Guest Information Center on the weekends for people who didn’t have Internet access. We printed tickets for them and they picked them up the next time they were in church,” noted Purvis.
“This first experience with TicketU was very successful. Our attendance was 4,009, and the three services that Easter were almost perfectly balanced.”
Since the first time using TicketU for Easter of 2005, Parkview
has used TicketU for eight different events, and has provided 21,989
tickets in total.
“This weekend, we will be making tickets available for this year’s five Easter services. We opened our new Worship Center in March of 2006 and now have the capacity to seat 1,500 people at one service, but we will still need five services to make room for everyone and their guests. This past Christmas, we used e-tickets and they helped us to successfully accommodate 6,500 people,” Purvis added.
For this year’s Easter services, Parkview plans to change the name of the process to E-Reservations rather than E-Tickets, since they do not charge for admission and they do not formally collect the tickets. “We place receptacles around for people to drop their tickets in if they brought them, but for us, it has never been about making sure that everyone who comes has a piece of paper when they walk through the doors. It’s been about using our space to the best possible advantage, and making sure that there is a seat for everyone who wants to come.”
Purvis continued, “Outreach is happening every weekend, and our staff and ministry leaders are working very hard to love the people who are coming, help them grow into committed disciples of Jesus, and release them to bring the love of God to their families, neighborhoods, and workplaces.”
“TicketU has been invaluable in helping us to manage the logistics of ministering to thousands and thousands of people. The cost has been minimal compared to the benefits TicketU has provided.”