A Postmortem on the PM Service
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The handwriting was already on the wall before the pandemic killed it. Attendance at the evening service of a typical Bible-preaching church in America has been plummeting for years. Many abandoned it long before COVID restrictions forced each church to evaluate what was truly essential to its ministry. While some resolutely returned to the old schedule, many dropped their evening service in the subsequent years.
Admittedly, the elimination of the evening service has made Sundays more relaxing. It’s supposed to be a day of rest, right? We’ll leave the sabbath debate for another theological blog post, but is it not a good thing to have more time with family on the weekend? We have gained time, but what did we lose?
We Lost Opportunities for Deeper Teaching
Yes, we can (and should) preach rich, biblical messages in the Sunday morning worship service. But is this one sermon per week enough teaching for a group of growing believers? How can a pastor adequately cover both Old and New Testaments with just one preaching service per week?
While the Sunday morning message may be deep, the wide range of spiritual maturity in the audience limits that depth to some extent. In addition, the inevitable (and welcome) presence of unbelievers on a Sunday morning requires the preacher to spend some of his time getting back to the basics of the gospel. The available time for delving into a passage shrinks with each consideration. The evening service used to provide the forum for deeper teaching for maturing believers, but that slot has gone the way of the dodo.
We Lost Slots for Young Preachers
Pastors should be training their successors. New pastors rise from churches, not seminaries. Paul told Timothy to look for faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). We must follow the biblical example of leadership training in the local church.
The young preachers we train need opportunities to preach or they will never develop to the point of becoming effective communicators of God’s Word. The evening service used to be a prime time for these budding preachers. That’s when I gained much of my experience as a young Assistant Pastor. However, with the demise of the evening service, the young preachers lost their opportunities to preach regularly. Of course, the senior pastor should preach on Sunday morning. He cannot give up that space often because he has a responsibility to teach the whole council of God’s Word. But there is no room for him to train his successor. Then again, if training up new pastors is not a priority, then losing the evening service may not be that big of a deal.
We Lost Windows for Missions Reports
Missionaries provide the local church with the primary method of fulfilling the “uttermost part of the world” portion of the Great Commission. They come to churches and report on what God is doing around the world. They inspire the next generation to continue what God started in the book of Acts, taking the gospel to the regions beyond.
With no evening service, when do the missionaries speak? Do they get relegated to a quick ten-minute summary of their last four years of ministry, squeezed between the third hymn and the pastoral prayer? How can the congregation get to know the missionaries they support and their work? Furthermore, in the past, missionaries could visit two churches on one Sunday, allowing them to get back to their fields more efficiently. With only one service, furlough times must lengthen to the detriment of their overseas ministries.
Concluding Thoughts on the Evening Service
Maybe the evening service needed to die. Or maybe this postmortem is premature. The evening service may resurrect or reappear as a regular or occasional afternoon service. Or maybe we should view the evening service as a form that in some cases had lost its function. In the last few decades, congregations lost sight of what the evening service had been intended to do, and so saw little reason to attend.
The evening service itself is a tradition, not an essential. What is essential is the Great Commission—the evangelism and discipleship of the church. The pastor must preach and teach God’s people to observe all that Christ commanded—the whole council of God’s Word (Matthew 28:19; Acts 20:27). Times and places may change—those are forms—but the Great Commission functions cannot.
Maybe Sunday School will rise to fill in the gap left by the passing of the evening service. But it too is facing extinction. In some cases, Sunday School is merely renamed something cool—Adult Bible Fellowships, Small Groups, Ignite, etc. However, I have started to see a trend where only the morning worship service is left standing. One pastor told me that his church’s sole meeting each week is the morning service. How can we fulfill the Great Commission if the body of believers only meet once a week? The church in Acts may not have had traditional Sunday evening services, but they did meet regularly—even daily. We are not the Roman Catholic Church, requiring only a weekly check-in. The biblical church is a body that needs regular fellowship and camaraderie in spreading the Word (Philippians 1:5). We must have systematic teaching in Scripture and corporate prayer. Check-in Christianity is not biblical Christianity.
The Sunday evening service is fading off the scene. That in itself is not necessarily a tragedy. But what will replace it for the health and furtherance of God’s church in the world?
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Dr. Conrad serves in urban Asia. He, his wife, and their four children squeeze into a 700 square-foot apartment where he seizes rare moments of quiet to write amidst homeschooling, a cacophony of musical instruments, and the steady stream of visitors they so enjoy having in their home. He enjoys birding, board games, and basketball. He is the author of, so far, two books.
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How sad that, in a country where we have the freedom to meet anytime we wish, churches are cancelling evening services. Some churches replace the evening service with youth ministries, music practice, or home Bible studies. Yet most people do not attend those events. Most people who attended evening service now don't do anything except stay home and watch the news or other programs/movies. Christians in persecution areas would love to have the freedom we waste.
If churches wish to continue evening service, then make it different in some ways, not just a repeat of the morning service. Interactive preaching/teaching, music, testimonies, video updates from missionaries are possible. Perhaps the unspoken reason for cancelling evening service involves 1)boring evening service which repeats the morning and 2)laziness.
I doubt any believer in heaven regrets going to all those evening services. Believers in persecution areas wish they could have more.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
What’s the history of the American evening service?
Anyone know?
I haven’t found much on it that has any documentation to back it.
Some say the Puritans started it in the 1600s. Others say it started during WWII because war production led to 7 day, around the clock shift work.
I really thought I also read somewhere a while back that it began during 2nd Great Awakening as a kind of continuation of revival meetings after the itinerant evangelist left town… but I have no idea now where I read that.
Edit add: This is interesting
But I’m not sure how reliable it is.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Is the evening service an American thing?
I've never understood why the evening service needs to be "different" than the morning service. To me, that idea is part of what is killing the evening service, because what "different" tends to mean is not as significant -- the choir doesn't sing, or less special music, or a less substantial message. If churches would make the evening service just as significant as the morning service, then more people would come out to it.
I agree with the post here, that the loss of the evening service means the loss of opportunities -- for further preaching, development of younger men in ministry, development of younger musicians, missions reports, and other things. One of the reasons we go to the church we go to now is because it still has an evening service.
To me, that idea is part of what is killing the evening service, because what “different” tends to mean is not as significant — the choir doesn’t sing, or less special music, or a less substantial message.
Interesting perspective. I’ve always felt the opposite. Why do exactly the same thing twice and expect everyone to come? During my years as a pastor, though, we worked hard to not portray it as “less” anything, other than formal. I tried to make it more informal and interactive. I don’t think I was successful in giving it a distinct purpose, though. But I still think if a church is going to do it, it should be special and have a purpose other than “once is not enough.”
But admittedly, this is totally just my inclination. It seems logical to me, but that’s all I have to back it. (The church where I serve now hasn’t done PM services since long before I got involved. I don’t miss it. I would not be eager to drive up there twice on a Sunday, and one of those trips in the dark. I’m still not “old,” but I’m no longer young, and hate night driving. It would be different if the church was two blocks away in my village.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
We might draw a connection to the European traditions of morning and evening vespers, when cloistered communities especially came together for a time of devotion.
Regarding Sunday services in particular, my take is that they can be a blessing or a burden, depending on circumstances, much like I'd guess our forebears came to see vespers. Perhaps one of the big questions for today--and as someone who drives ~25 minutes to church, I represent this remark--is the amount of time it takes to come together to gather. If we all went to church in our own towns, this burden largely disappears.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Dan Forrest's new Oratorio, Creation, has an very interesting section in it called, "Do it Again." It is a reading that talks about the repetition within God's creation (see below). Why do we go to church every Sunday and why do it again on Sunday evening (or why do it again the next Sunday). Maybe because we never grow tired of it, because the worship of God and the preaching of his word never grows old. The evening service is only "same thing" if the songs are the same and the sermon is the same. But if the music is different and there is a new message, then for me, it is the Lord's day, and I want to do it again!
If something goes on endlessly repeating itself,
it might feel like mere clockwork.
We might feel that if the universe was personal, it would vary –
that if the sun were alive, it would dance.
But perhaps…the sun rises every morning
because he never gets tired of rising.
His routine might be due not to lifelessness, but to a rush of life.
Children, with their endless energy,
always want things repeated and unchanged…
they always say, “Do it again.”
What if God has this eternal vitality,
and is strong enough to exult in repetition?
Perhaps God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun;
and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon,
…but has never gotten tired of it.
It may not be necessity that makes all daisies alike;
perhaps God makes every daisy, one at a time,
because he has never grown tired of making them.
This grand show is eternal.
It is always sunrise somewhere;
a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.
Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset,
eternal dawn and gloaming,
on sea and continents and islands,
each in its turn, as this round earth rolls.
-Adapted from G.K. Chesterton and John Muir (used by permission)
The author makes a compelling case. But
Sundays can be so crazy:
- Abf. Get there early for set up
- Meetings before the evening service or after
At my church there is only an AM service. Instead of the evening service, we are encouraged to be building relationships with people in the community or with people in the church, having them into our homes for meals, etc. Many of the members do this and might not have time to do it any other day of the week.
I'm not suggesting this is what every church should be doing. It's just what has worked for us.
It is hard to find good churches and then on top of that to find ones that still do an evening service. Not sure that its death can be hinged on a single idea, it is probably lots of things (waning attendance, like Andy said a lack of repitition, overworked pastors...). I would like to find a good church that had a Sunday evening service, but it is getting harder. Just like trying to find a church with good music.
With a potluck lunch between the morning services and afternoon. We are small enough that it works, but there is a drop off at each successive stage of the day.
The point of making it meaningful resonated with me, though. The afternoon service doesn't receive as much effort from me as the AM services. I need to think about making it a "last charge of the day" to send our folks out into their week.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Our church still has Sunday School, Sun AM service, Sun PM service, and a Wednesday evening prayer meeting. We run about 100 for SS, between 110 - 130 during the Sunday AM service, between 20 - 30 during the Sunday PM service, and <10 adults during the Wednesday evening prayer meeting. In addition to these services, I and the other elders each lead our own discipleship group of 3-4 men during the week.
Earlier this year, we (the elders) began conversations about ending the Wednesday evening prayer meeting for adults while continuing to use Wednesdays for our youth gathering. Then, we read together the book Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church by Onwuchekwa (a 9Marks book). This book helped us understand the need and urgency for corporate prayer and encouraged us to continue our prayer meeting despite the small adult turnout.
I've always been one to attend the regular services of the churches my family has been part of. The last church we attended only had Sunday AM services and a small group option during the week. They had a youth meeting on Sunday PM and a youth Bible study on Wednesdays.
I've also attended churches where the pastor, facing declining evening attendance, preached sermons on Sunday AM to guilt people into attending the evening services. "If you love Jesus, you'll be here on Sunday / Wednesday evenings" kind of preaching. No thanks to that manipulation.
I do like the Sunday evening option. I think it provides just what the article says it does. But, no matter how much we promote it, most of our people don't participate. It's not a priority to them.
If/when we roll out a good small group option for the whole church, we will probably cut out one of these services. Until then, we continue as is for now.
I was taught in seminary (I think out of Earle Cairns Christianity Through the Centuries) that there was no such thing as a weekend in the first-century Roman world. Thus, every day was a workday for the working class. The church in any given place was made up of many such people (slaves). So, churches met early in the morning and then again late in the evening (e.g., Acts 20:7-12) to accommodate them. I'm a pastor, and Sunday is tiring, but I think of a first-century Christian slave meeting with the church in the morning, working all day, then meeting again in the evening, and wonder how tired such believers might have been.
When did the Sunday evening church service originate?
The tradition of Sunday evening church services dates back to the 19th century and has roots in various Christian denominations, especially Protestant ones. The origin of this practice is closely tied to social and cultural changes during the Industrial Revolution.
Historical Context:
- Industrial Revolution: During the 19th century, many people worked long hours, often including Saturdays, and Sunday became a day of rest and religious observance. For those who couldn't attend morning services due to work or other obligations, evening services were introduced as a more convenient option.
- Evangelism and Revival Movements: In the 18th and 19th centuries, the evangelical and revival movements, particularly in England and the United States, led to a push for more frequent gatherings. Evangelists often held evening services to draw in crowds after the workday, making worship more accessible.
- Urbanization: As more people moved to cities and towns, church leaders adapted their schedules to meet the needs of congregants. Evening services allowed churches to reach those who might not have been able to attend during the morning hours.
These factors contributed to the rise of Sunday evening services, which became a fixture in many Christian communities throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over time, some churches continued this tradition, while others reduced or eliminated it due to changes in cultural habits and church attendance patterns.
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