Our church doesn't have a regular Sunday night service.

[Just Ben]

“How many weary and starved congregations listen hopelessly to a dejected preacher who will never give them a word, a phrase, or a thought they have not heard hundreds of times.”
Henry Ward Beecher
It takes hours to study and prepare sermons that meet the needs of the congregation. Why not have a good Sunday morning service where the people are fed from the Word of God, and let the people have some guilt-free quality family time together at home on Sunday evenings.

 

[FSSL]

Better idea...

Multiple elders who teach.
One may have a couple weeks in a row because they are doing a series (or you can leapfrog back and forth or team teach the series).

IFB pastors have a common saying... "I am jealous of my pulpit." Assistants and Youth Pastors do not get many opportunities to do that. In fact... 5 years in one church, I preached two times... both were Sunday nights.

 

[BandGuy]

Are we less spiritual or less 'Biblical' than those who do?
Why or why not?

I wish we didn't either. It would certainly open more time for choir and worship band rehearsal.

 

[Tarheel Baptist]

Then the pastor is doing it wrong.

If irony were money, that post could make us all wealthy! 

 

[rsc2a]

You think a shepherd should spend more time studying how to be a shepherd than actually shepherding his flock? Sounds like a good way to get a lot of lambs eaten.

 

[subllibrm]

Are we less spiritual or less 'Biblical' than those who do?
Why or why not?

Did you used to have one, and drop it, or have you never had one?

What possible difference would that make?

The direction can be important.  Someone who "used to have" Wed PM and Sun PM services, but have dropped them both is not quite the same as a church that has never had them.

Dropping a service can indicate that the church that used to have time for God now no longer has time for Him, which would be going backwards.

Judgmental clucking cloaked in hypothetical garb.

As I posted previously, our people are busier doing what the church was instructed to do now that that they don't have to spend so much time going to "church". And weirder still is that the church building is occupied more often by more people doing many more varieties of activities.

From my perspective, the fill the calendar with church services (with the thinly veiled assumption that not attending is an indicator of sin) is a wasteful model. When are the people supposed to "do the work of the ministry" that the pastor is supposedly training them to do?

Mark Lowery had a great line about growing up in an IFB church and being good faithful Christians: "Every time the church doors were open the Lowerys were there. If the pastor was washing the windows, we were there in our pew to watch him do it". I know it is a joke but it wouldn't be funny if it weren't so near the actual truth. If that mind set didn't actually exist in some form then everyone would just go "huh?"

 

[subllibrm]

Better idea...

Multiple elders who teach.
One may have a couple weeks in a row because they are doing a series (or you can leapfrog back and forth or team teach the series).

IFB pastors have a common saying... "I am jealous of my pulpit." Assistants and Youth Pastors do not get many opportunities to do that. In fact... 5 years in one church, I preached two times... both were Sunday nights.

About two months after our current pastor came we had a guest speaker. I was surprised when I walked in and there was pastor. Having seen the announcement in the previous week's bulletin, I assumed pastor was out of town for some reason. So I made some comment to him in fun about not "jealously guarding the holy desk" (an attitude that I find ridiculous BTW). He smiled and said "I like to get fed once in a while too".

His stated goal is to help prepare the elders so that each one will have opportunity to preach a message at least once a year and teach a SS series. I will start teaching our new members classes in a few weeks and preaching a missions message in April. He will be there on all of those Sundays. I guess he doesn't understand jealousy very well.

 

[FSSL]

We had a week of evangelistic meetings. I was the Assistant Pastor. A family who lived next door to the church, invited me in.

I was bound to be late to the meeting. I sat with the entire family and gave them the gospel and answered their questions. This came after getting to know them for two years.

I was late to the meeting. I was an assistant, so I was just another person in the pew anyways.

After the service I explained why I was late. The pastor retorted, "You should have brought them all to the meeting!"

The program mentality undermines the gospel.

 

[subllibrm]

We had a week of evangelistic meetings. I was the Assistant Pastor. A family who lived next door to the church, invited me in.

I was bound to be late to the meeting. I sat with the entire family and gave them the gospel and answered their questions. This came after getting to know them for two years.

I was late to the meeting. I was an assistant, so I was just another person in the pew anyways.

After the service I explained why I was late. The pastor retorted, "You should have brought them all to the meeting!"

The program mentality undermines the gospel.

I am sure that the gospel presentation at the church meeting was way better than the one you gave to them personally. <sarcasm>

I only added the <sarcasm> because there are likely some who would actually believe that line of reasoning and think I meant it. 

 

[FSSL]

Since the evangelist unashamedly taught Charles Finney methods to the prayer leaders before each meeting, I am sure the gospel was not present. In fact, I know it wasn't.

 

[rsc2a]

How dare you try to take notches out of the evangelist's belt!

 

[prophet]

Since the evangelist unashamedly taught Charles Finney methods to the prayer leaders before each meeting, I am sure the gospel was not present. In fact, I know it wasn't.

So much here.

God made the appointment, glad you kept it.

 

[Bob H]

Are we less spiritual or less 'Biblical' than those who do?
Why or why not?

Did you used to have one, and drop it, or have you never had one?

For many years, we had a Sunday night service, but stopped about 12 years ago.
We have three 'semesters' of elective classes on Sunday evenings.

So you do have something on Sunday evening after all