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 necessary a tragedy. But what will replace it for the health and furtherance of God’s church in the world?
