Church Service Times

[Salty]

In the past most Baptist churches had a schedule such as:

945 am Sunday School
1100 am Morning Service
600 pm Training Union
700 pm Evening worship

Now days many churches have forsaken the evening service for one reason (or excuse) or another.

Question # 1 - how important is it for a church to have an evening service.
Q # 2 - are several home Bible Studies an acceptable substitute for a church wide evening service?
Q # 3 - What are your thoughts about the following Sunday Service schedule:
(yes, this is from an actual church webpage)

SS 10 am
MW 11 am
Dinner 12 Noon
Afternoon Svc 1 pm
Why do you have “fellowship dinners” every Sunday?

When gas prices jumped up several years ago we were reminded of two things: 1) gas is expensive and 2) fellowship is precious. Our folks enjoy the food, fellowship, and fun with different themes for the covered dish and sharing the work involved in a Sunday dinner. We don’t expect visitors to bring anything but we would love for you to join us in fellowship and a great meal. Come be our guest this Sunday!

 

[Squire Robertsson]

We switched up our schedule about 18 months ago for 2016 Super Bowl. For the month of January, we had our normal 10:50 AM Sunday morning service. Then, at 12:30 we served lunch with a 2 PM afternoon service. We found there was less of a drop off in attendance relative to our original 6 PM service.

 

[Tennessee Gal]

In the past most Baptist churches had a schedule such as:

945 am Sunday School
1100 am Morning Service
600 pm Training Union
700 pm Evening worship

Now days many churches have forsaken the evening service for one reason (or excuse) or another.

Question # 1 - how important is it for a church to have an evening service.
Q # 2 - are several home Bible Studies an acceptable substitute for a church wide evening service?
Q # 3 - What are your thoughts about the following Sunday Service schedule:
(yes, this is from an actual church webpage)

SS 10 am
MW 11 am
Dinner 12 Noon
Afternoon Svc 1 pm
Why do you have “fellowship dinners” every Sunday?

When gas prices jumped up several years ago we were reminded of two things: 1) gas is expensive and 2) fellowship is precious. Our folks enjoy the food, fellowship, and fun with different themes for the covered dish and sharing the work involved in a Sunday dinner. We don’t expect visitors to bring anything but we would love for you to join us in fellowship and a great meal. Come be our guest this Sunday!

When I moved back home I visited an Independent Baptist Church who during the winter months had the following schedule:
10:00 AM S.S.
11:00 AM worship ( At noon broke for covered dish lunch)
2:00 PM service ( replacing evening service)
They did this as it was an older congregation and many didn't drive at night.
During daylight savings time they returned to a 6:00 PM service time for their evening service. Perhaps because some people still held jobs they held their Wednesday service at the regular 7:00 PM time year round.
I hadn't heard of this and it hit me as rather strange. Leaving home on a Sunday morning at say 9:30 AM and not returning until 3:30 PM is also hard on older people and makes for a long day.
This particular congregation are well grounded believers, so why not just cancel evening service on Sunday evenings for the winter months?

When we look back in recent church history the Sunday evening service was started as an evangelistic out reach and Sunday school was started to train children but neither was prevalent until the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Don't get me wrong I 'm all for S.S. school as I think from a Christian education point of few it is the best way next to the home to ground children in the Word of God.

I am not against home Bible studies to replace the evening service as long as the leaders are grounded in the Scriptures and do not go against church doctrine.

I spent most of my life attending the regular scheduled services at my church. One of my nieces asked me a few years ago why we go to church on a Sunday morning and turn around and do the same a few hours later? I pondered her question as I mentioned early in this post that was not the norm for much of church history.