10 Reasons We Still Have Sunday Evening Service

[Jim] Honestly when I was a pastor the people who didn’t come on Sunday night were viewed as ‘unfaithful’ … ‘not committed’.

I wonder how much of that type of marginalization still exists?

There is IMO a lack of discernment between ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ on this issue, as well as when making judgments about someone’s spiritual state based on their church attendance.

I’m sure the marginalization of those who don’t attend Sunday evening still exists as it does for those who don’t attend community groups or fellowship times.

Try finding family time in a church where Sunday activities go on all day (SS, worship, nursing home, choir practice, evening service), plus Wednesday Prayer Meeting, plus Tuesday and Saturday visitation, Friday youth group, various group times, and officers meetings.

While there’s no Biblical mandate for Sunday evening services, we may be able to learn valuable lessons from church history.

For many Christians, Sunday is hardly a day of rest. Like Ron Bean conveys above, it can end up being just as hectic, if not more so, than any other day of the week.

My church does not have a scheduled Sunday evening service. (Once in a while, we will meet on Sunday evenings for special services for some things.) We do however have a Saturday evening service (begun this past summer), in addition to three Sunday morning services. (All four services have the same message preached.)

Here’s what my weekend church attendance looked like: I was there for the Saturday service, in both attender and volunteer capacities.

[BTW, this service has exceeded our expectations. We started it to hopefully see new faces, and it’s doing exactly that. We’re seeing new people attending who normally work on Sundays (which statistically is around 1/3 of the working population), and we’re even—to our surprise!—seeing good numbers of transient travelers who are staying at one of the nearby motels/hotels on Saturday nights. Our curbside electronic sign saying “Saturday Service: 5 PM” is drawing some of them in. We just set our record for Saturday service attendance: 335.]

Sunday morning, I was at church at 7:30, to do some early tasks that I usually attend to. I then attended the 1st of the three services. I normally teach a S.S. class during the 2nd service time, but this week I didn’t have to: classes were cancelled due to the New Year’s Day holiday weekend. Nevertheless, I volunteered in other capacities during both the 2nd and 3rd service times. Following the 3rd service, I went through the sanctuary collecting plastic communion cups from all four weekend services (Sat & Sun), which is no simple task when it entails collecting around 2,000 cups. Following that, I helped do some tear-down/set-up in some rooms to prepare them for the preschool/daycare that uses that wing of the building from Monday to Friday.

When I left, it was about 1:30 Sunday afternoon. I was tired. Would I have come back to a Sunday evening service if we had one? I’m not so sure. Factoring in the fact that I get up about 4:45 on weekdays to go to work, I’m even less convinced.

At that point, does that display a lack of commitment on my part, or am I just seeking some rest on the seventh day of the week?

[Jim]

Honestly when I was a pastor the people who didn’t come on Sunday night were viewed as ‘unfaithful’ … ‘not committed’.

I wonder how much of that type of marginalization still exists?

A LOT. When attendance falls, rather than try to find the legitimate cause or discontinue what we’ve always done, it is generally the predictable knee-jerk response to try to manipulate greater participation in one fashion or another.