By Thom Rainer
Our churches did well in reaching the agrarian culture. We gave the farmers time to get the chores done and get to church by 11:00 am. Unfortunately, this culture began to wane around 1860 with the onset of the railroad and industrial age.
Most of our churches have worship services for the farmers who no longer exist.
We haven’t changed a lot in the past 160 years. I guess life moves slowly for a lot of churches.
In the meantime, a dramatic shift is taking place in the American workplace. More people are working on weekends, many of them on Sundays, than ever before. But most churches haven’t moved their worship day at all. It’s still on Sunday mornings.
We keep hoping the farmers will show up.
While I would not advocate abandoning Sunday worship, I wonder why so few churches offer a non-Sunday alternative. There is a huge demographic we are missing: those working on the weekends. Consider these issues:
According to a 2016 time study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 34 percent of the workforce works on the weekend. Do the numbers. The U. S. workforce is approximately 160 million. That means over 54 million work on the weekend. Please read the preceding sentence again. 54 million. That’s staggering.
- If someone works either day, Saturday or Sunday, they are not likely to attend Sunday services. For Saturday workers, Sunday becomes their day off after a tough work schedule.
- The reasons for not doing weeknight services are rarely theological. If you have a biblical…
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