My whole life I’ve gone to church Sunday morning and Sunday evening.
My parents took us to church and Sunday school on Sunday morning, and they always took us back on Sunday evening. We even went when the Bears were in the Super Bowl. The crowd was much smaller than Sunday morning, but there were always people eager to be there.
Over the years, the evening service started to feel less like a “real” service as preaching became less prominent. We’d watch a video for a month or combine with another church for the summer or try small groups. I have nothing against videos (in their proper place), joint services, or small groups. But at the time they all seemed like efforts to keep up the tradition of the evening service without putting forth much effort.
In college I went to a Baptist church with strong preaching. My friends and I went Sunday morning and came back hours later to their well-attended evening service. While at seminary, I attended a wonderful OPC (now PCA) congregation. The attendance could be sparse on Sunday night, but I was always eager to go. I even met my wife there.
My first pastoral charge was at a large church in Iowa. As the associate pastor I would often preach on Sunday evening. We had around 900 people in the morning and about half that in the evening. I was glad to be there for two services.
When I came to University Reformed Church in 2004 the long-standing tradition of evening services had just about disappeared. I don’t think the interim pastor had much interest in them, and the attendance had dwindled to a few dozen. I told the search committee that I wanted to resurrect the evening service. Over the years, the service grew to a strong core of committed folks, about one-fourth of our Sunday morning attendance.
Now as the pastor at Christ Covenant, I’m eager to pour into Sunday evening and, by God’s grace, see that service flourish.
Read more»Kevin DeYoung | “Seven Reasons I Love The Evening Service (And You Can Too)” | July 21, 2017
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Why did the Baptist congregation have a well-attended evening service, and the Reformed church did not? All the years my wife and I attended Baptist churches we found the evening service well attended. At one church the preaching in the evening service was as good as in the morning service.
Rich,
It may be that the congregation was small to begin with. Some Reformed churches have very good evening attendance and some get about 50% of the morning attendance. The reasons vary. Some Reformed denominations do not have a very strong tradition of evening services. My impression is that evening services tend to be the norm in the OPC but they are definitely no longer the norm in the PCA. The Dutch churches, historically, had a very strong tradition of evening worship but the CRC has followed the same pattern of the PCA and have more or less given up the evening service. Our churches in the URCNA are required to have a second service. We probably get about 50% of the morning attendance in our evening service.
Why?
The two major reasons are 1) a lack of appreciation for the means of grace; 2) the loss of the idea of the sabbath.
FWIW, I address both of these in Recovering the Reformed Tradition.
It’s definitely a matter of prayer and concern. I’m glad Kevin is writing about this.