Why I'm Thankful for Sunday Nights

I know a Sunday night service doesn't fit into the model of every church. Some churches use Sunday nights for prayer meetings or small groups, some churches don't have a sunday night service for a variety of good reasons. I don't want to debate the rights and wrongs of Sunday night services, i just want to say this:

I'm so thankful for our Sunday night service at Trinity.

I'm thankful for an opportunity to just go to church

On Sunday morning i teach sunday school and children's church. I want to meet visitors and make sure i touch base with all our teens. I love the sung worship, but i'm focussed on teaching for most of the morning. Teaching and containing the forty kids we had in children's' church this morning! But Sunday night, i just get to come to church, sit next to my wife, and be fed from the Word. And i'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for an opportunity to sabbath

Sunday's are for God's glory and our improvement. Rest for the Christian doesn't mean to cease from activity, but to be with Jesus. There's a wonderful rest in being with God's people, in singing, giving and just seeing each other. There's rest in praying together, there's rest in gathering to sit under the Word, because there's rest in Jesus.

I'm thankful for family

In these Christ-haunted south eastern states, we might might be the last people in the world who are expected to be at church in Sunday morning. It's just part of the cultural make-up. Sunday nights though, are made up of the people that really want to be there. They really want to grow, they really want to sing, they really want to commune. They want to get up, get dressed and come to church again. I love the praise time we have sometimes on Sunday nights at Trinity. The battles and victories of the last week are shared and rejoiced in. Details are shared, because we're family. We love eachother and we love our church.

I'm thankful for the chance to be upside-down

The early believers were described as 'men who turned the world upside down.' And the Bible has that effect on it's readers. As i read through Matthew's Gospel recently i was struck by how Jesus constantly upends our categories and thought processes. Reading Genesis at the moment is teaching me that there is no middle ground, you're either following the God of Abraham, or you're not. And Sunday night church gives us another opportunity to do that. It'd be so much easier not to go back to church, so much easier to spend Sunday afternoon chasing our own entertainments. But what a waste! I'm thankful that Sunday night gives us a chance to say that there is something more important than our own comforts or interests, and that thing is churxh.