"It is difficult for me to see a legitimate reason to move regular Sunday services from the 'Lord’s day' to any other day of the week."

I have no problem at all with a church adding a Saturday night service. My wife and I were just discussing something similar yesterday after a family gathering on Memorial Day which included a Lutheran pastor who had to rush home to conduct the church’s regular Monday night service.
This practice, which we think to be so contemporary and cutting edge, has been done for decades — particularly in Lutheran churches which are well-known for adding a Monday-, Wednesday-, Thursday- or Saturday-night service, which is generally a duplicate of the Sunday morning service(s) for parishoners who work on Sunday. Also, in days gone by it was very common for pastors to serve two congregations, and often one of them would have its service on Saturday evening instead of Sunday.
Interestingly, the Jewish Sunday would have begun on our Saturday evening anyway — so if you really want to be literal about it, a Saturday evening service would seem to be very appropriate. Conversely, how many times have you drug yourself to a Sunday evening service wishing instead you were home in your PJ’s getting ready to take in the work week ahead? Pray tell — at which might you be more apt to devote your heart and mind to worship?
I would actually love to go to a church which was growing enough to need to add a service on Saturday evening, and forward thinking enough to actually do it.
At most, this is an area of Christian liberty (Col. 2:16).

Footnote #1 — I am addressing the practice of having a Saturday night service here by itself. If that service is intended to be more contemporary, casual, seeker-sensitive, etc., that is a separate issue which I am not commenting on here.
Footnote #2 — I have noticed more and more larger Baptist churches adding Saturday evening services at special times such as Christmas and Easter, so apparently they also view this as a matter of practicality and not conviction.

A specious argument on what is generally a non-issue. Many churches schedule services on Saturday evenings to provide times for corporate worship for the 30% of Americans who must work on Sundays. The days of Blue Laws are long gone and Sunday employment is a reality for many folks. In addition, many more churches now schedule Saturday services as overflow services. I know of churches with auditoriums that will only seat 1,000 who are scheduling as many as 4 Sunday services, additional ones on Saturday and (horrors) even one on Friday night. We have a local church with a small auditorium in our area that actually has services offered each night of the week. Particularly in large, urban areas where real estate and building costs are expensive, multiple services on multiple days is not only an effective way to encourage more people to come to corporate worship and preaching, it’s simply good stewardship.

i don’t know if there are any other countries like this, but at least in nepal, all christians of every denomination meet on saturday because sunday through monday are normal working days and saturday is the national day off.

Sunday worship is not a New Testament ordinance, such as believer’s baptism and the Lord’s table. I am unaware of any New Testament command to meet on Sunday for worship. Instead, the New Testament indicates that this was a voluntary practice of the church…

I remember when my dad would fill up the car on Saturday because we couldn’t buy gas on Sunday, and he had to drive from the backwoods of WV to Kentucky (Ashland Oil) on Monday to go to work. My mom would also do her shopping on Saturday because you couldn’t stop on the way home from church to pick up some little thing you forgot for Sunday dinner.

As for statements made in the OP- sure it’s an action based on pragmatism. I would be one of those people that believes that we should be more pragmatic, and that doing things ‘the hard way’ isn’t inherently more spiritual than being poor or standing on the front pew to preach. If it fulfills a need and more people come to church on Saturday because of their work schedules… isn’t that a good thing? Does it have to be a marketing gimmick by default because it flies in the face of tradition? I will admit that I’ve grown a bit weary of the idea that folks who do not show up for church “every time the doors are open” aren’t committed Christians and that they are ‘forsaking the assembly’. If they take time off work to attend church, they may be forsaking a decent paycheck that will cover their bills, or they may not have a job at all. And what has that accomplished? Are they a martyr for the faith because they lost their job in order to attend revivals and missions conferences and potlucks? So…. is the church going to pitch in and pay their bills now, or do they line up at the gov’t trough? I think churches should stop tying their congregations into pretzel knots over these things.

Since, as the author has so said, Sunday services are not a Biblical mandate, I think we are free to schedule meetings for times when people can be there. And I don’t think it is compromise to acknowledge that times have changed, and the church may be required to change (in areas that do not violate sound doctrine) in order to meet the needs of the culture in which they wish to minister.

[Susan R]

Sunday worship is not a New Testament ordinance, such as believer’s baptism and the Lord’s table. I am unaware of any New Testament command to meet on Sunday for worship. Instead, the New Testament indicates that this was a voluntary practice of the church…

. If it fulfills a need and more people come to church on Saturday because of their work schedules… isn’t that a good thing? Does it have to be a marketing gimmick by default because it flies in the face of tradition? I will admit that I’ve grown a bit weary of the idea that folks who do not show up for church “every time the doors are open” aren’t committed Christians and that they are ‘forsaking the assembly’. If they take time off work to attend church, they may be forsaking a decent paycheck that will cover their bills, or they may not have a job at all. And what has that accomplished? Are they a martyr for the faith because they lost their job in order to attend revivals and missions conferences and potlucks? So…. is the church going to pitch in and pay their bills now, or do they line up at the gov’t trough? I think churches should stop tying their congregations into pretzel knots over these things.

Since, as the author has so said, Sunday services are not a Biblical mandate, I think we are free to schedule meetings for times when people can be there. And I don’t think it is compromise to acknowledge that times have changed, and the church may be required to change (in areas that do not violate sound doctrine) in order to meet the needs of the culture in which they wish to minister.

Susan, I couldn’t agree more with what you posted here. My son is having a LOT of difficulty finding a job right now that doesn’t require him to work on Sundays. If his church offered a Saturday evening service, it would be so much easier for him to obtain employment, especially since he’s looking for a job as a baker or something else in food service. Compound this by the fact that not only does he want to be in church and is unwilling to compromise on that, but he’s in college majoring in Christian Ministries, so doesn’t want to miss church at all!

[Dan Burrell] Particularly in large, urban areas where real estate and building costs are expensive, multiple services on multiple days is not only an effective way to encourage more people to come to corporate worship and preaching, it’s simply good stewardship.

Amen Dan! The idea of building a new building instead of having multiple services is a ridiculous one whose time has come and gone. Denominational churches with historic buildings — and every mega church and every church which you see or hear on TV and radio — defies the silly assumption that as soon as you have to set out 10 folding chairs it must be time to talk to the banker about breaking ground :cry:

My wife and I attended the Friday night worship service at church for a couple years (a duplicate of what is done on Sunday morning). Now we have been attending on Sunday mornings for the past couple of months. It was very refreshing for us to go on Fridays. We didn’t look upon it as trendy at all. Just an option that we thought we would try, and we really liked it.