Beginning Sunday, the First United Methodist Church will have a fourth service on its schedule.

"Jesus Uplifted in Spirit and Truth, or JUST Worship service, is a contemporary style worship service looking to reach the 18 to 40s crowd not only of the congregation but of the community, said Rev. Leland Bissinger one of two pastors leading the services. "Often, parents just drop off their kids and drive away."

Bissinger said with this service, the church is particularly looking out to reach those families.

The service will be at 9 a.m. between the traditional 8 a.m. service and the 10:30 a.m.. The church also provides a service in Spanish in conjunction with St. Olaf Lutheran Church.

"We realized we needed to reached further into the community; to reach beyond our doors and to move ahead, move forward. We decided to go set it up," Bissinger said.

Planing for this type of service has been going on for many years and, finally last fall, a decision was made.

"It's part of what we call long-range plans," Bissinger said.

The church has prioritize to expand the ministries and the JUST Worship is set specifically to meet those goals.

Unlike the more traditional services, the new service will entail lot of singing, drama and living altar depicting a theme from the Scriptures.

"The idea is to portray the theme to as many senses … ,"

Bissinger explained.

The tentative theme of this week is the living water, so a fountain would be set up to portray a visual message.

It is basically another option. The new service will appeal more to some than to others Bissinger said, pointing out that each of the services is slightly different.

In the 50-minute service the band of two guitarists, one bassist and the drummer, along with vocalists, will lead the worship.

For the first 15 minutes, everyone will meet at the main fellowship hall and children will then be dismissed for Sunday school.

Preaching for the services follows a common lectionary. With this program, the church looks at a fit needed for the congregation, but it is always Scripture-based, Bissinger said.

"We been talking about doing something like this for a while, and we finally got it together," he said.

Roxana Orellana can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at roxana.orellana@austindailyherald.com