Sunday Night Service

I often attend various conferences where the speakers are the pastors of Baptist mega-churches or are evangelists. Sunday night attendance at these churches numbers in the thousands. I think that is incredible.

Here's what really bothers me. It is to hear the pastors and evangelists criticize churches that do not have Sunday night services. The evangelists are especially bad about it. In my opinion they are trying to put a guilt trip on pastors who don't have Sunday night services. Or maybe the purpose is to make us feel spiritually inferior.

I might add that it is just as offensive to hear pastors of smaller churches do the same thing.

I can't judge their motives, but it sure irks me when they do this. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

To the original post...

Yes, we currently have Sunday School, Sunday Morning & Evening services as well as Wednesday Night Bible Study. The Sunday morning service is when we have the most visitors - friends & family of members, people looking for a church, curious or passing through. Sunday Night, however, we have mostly our faithful regulars who are the ones that do 90% of the work in the church. Our Evening service is abridged and focuses on discipleship while our morning service is longer and focuses on evangelism.

We currently have no plan to change our schedule. I also believe that this is a decision that is up to the local congregation and does not affect my personal view of that church or of evening services.

To those speaking of small groups, I could say all our meetings are "small groups" since we only have around thirty active attendees! LOL :laugh:

 

I've seen similiar things happen, and not just related to the kind of services one conducts. Also it doesn't matter if you use a contemporary, blended, or traditional model...this kind of thing happens to all people.

It's part of our nature, to brag about what works for us and sort of look down at people who don't do it that way.

What is bothersome is these fellows who believe that what they do is exactly what other people should do. Different churches require different models.

 

Sorry for the delay - busy weekend...

Okay, First off I would like to talk to three members to see why they want to cancel the service. Do they not like what is being offered? Would another time be more suitable for them (earlier or later)? Are they feeling this way based off what they experience or because of how they see the service fitting into the plan of the church? - IE -if we are a church that tries to build up families then why take away from family time on Sunday evening.

After hearing their responses and sounding out a few other members I would see if there are any changes I could make that would improve the service for them. If not, or if they want to press the issue, I would take it before the church at a regular business meeting allow both sides to be presented, give my own opinion and then abide by what the church decides. Obviously this would all take place after much prayer.

Now it is interesting at my church because we drop from an average of 25-35 at Sunday morning to an average of 15-25 at the evening services. The ones who do not attend in the evening are mostly the same ones who do not attend any other church function or event. besides the morning service. We also gain around three people in the evening who are members of other churches but those churches no longer offer evening services so they visit with us.

With this information my opinion (for my real world church), and the recommendation that I would make to the church is that we should continue with the evening services because obviously there is a large (percentage wise) number of members who attend and we are providing a service for a few that they are not getting elsewhere. Also, I like to maintain any opportunity for the church doors to be open in the rare case that someone searching may come in and be witnessed to.

Scheduling of services is not an area I would "draw a line in the sand" for. I would make my case but trust in the congregation to decide what is best for them, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Okay... I'm ready to be raked over the coals for that response! :tonofbricks:

 

Very well put Johnathon E, and I like your response to SALTCITY;
(With one exception.)

This idea of asking some disgruntled Church members, for their input, is going in the wrong direction.

If people vote with the feet, because they are too busy for the LORD, let them.

Our mandate as Church leaders, is to not try to please people.....
Galatians 1:10
“For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
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Every member of a Bible believing Church, that has three services a week, aught to praise the Lord, that they have so many chances to be fed from God’s Word.

In eternity, they will be glad that they attended every service.
(And those that don’t, are cutting there own noses off, to spite their face.)

 

LOL... sure, I'll mount it along side the certificate!:smilewinkgrin:

Thanks Salty!

 

You make a good point and I would agree if the issue was one concerning doctrine or if I had been at the church long enough to know the members and the concerns involved.

Why risk loosing three members if a small change -start time for example - could be made? Of course that change may please three people only to upset the other thirty seven which is why it would have to be accompanied by prayer and discussion.

Of course some people can never be pleased...

Thanks for the discussion.

Johnathon

 

I always took time to talk with the disgruntled members. I was never confrontational, but eventually addressed their issues.

I had one deacon who decided it was his duty to oppose everything the pastor presented. I went to see him with an idea and asked him what he thought of it. He agreed that it was a decent idea, so I suggested he present it at the next deacon's meeting and I would support his idea. It passed. I got what I wanted, and who cares where the credit lies. There are many ways to deal with those members who are out of sorts.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Sorry, but I'm not about to equate Sunday PM service attendance with righteousness.

 

Hello rbell

You said........

I never said one word about “righteousness”:
What I am talking about it “wisdom”.

It’s foolish for a Christian, to miss a scheduled service, for a frivolous reason.
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And it wise, for Bible believing Churches, to provide a Sunday evening service, for it’s members.

 

Right...there's nothing quite like extra-biblical rules, is there?

 

Jesus and the disciples went to Sunday evening services didn't they?

BTW, we have Sunday evening services and don't plan to eliminate them even though only about 25% of the morning crowd attends. Personally, I get a blessing from the PM service.

 

I love that! :applause: Thank you Jim.

 

I've never been wild about this caricature. People who say this are the same ones who have late SUN AM services because they're too lazy to get up and have a worship service at 6am, I suppose :tongue3: All ministry is contextual. Many contexts now just don't bear out three services. These same people have revivals that last a week. I can remember when they lasted 4-6 weeks. Everything is contextual.

The growing number of bivocational churches must give up one service - they cannot afford to have three, and they're admitting as such (although some continue to live in a fantasy world).

I love Sun PM services, but no church should feel as though they are out of bounds Biblically if they do something else on Sun PM. One church I served cancelled long before I got there because of safety issues due to the location of the church. One church moved their prayer meeting to Sun nite and their Wed service is now a full blown worship. One church does small groups on Sun nite. Another has eliminated all activities for observance of the Lord's day. Another did the math and realized it was financially poor stewardship to heat/condition/power up the sanctuary for the PM service. I'm just not prepared to throw these churches under the bus.

I recently became amuzed at a church that patted itself on the back for going to this schedule: SS at 10am, AM worship at 11am. Lunch at 12pm. PM service at 1:00. Everyone go home. Saves gas, they thought. But behind it all was this slavish idea to the must of two Sun services.

A local IFB pastor told me he would never cancel his Sun PM service for fear his salary would be cut. I suspect this may play in to many pastors' fears (they've said as much).

It's worth repeating: giving up a Sun pm service, or doing something else rather than worship service, IMHO does not violate the Word in principle or precept.

 

In one church I served we discussed cutting the PM service and going to cell groups to save on heating and cooling. Only about 15% of the AM folks were attending. Low and behold one of the first topics to come up was cutting the staff's salary because we wouldn't be working as hard. But, the underlying idea was that if we were doing our job better that the PM service would be more popular. Some folks are just plain ignorant.