Thursday Night Worship

So what's up with having church on Thursday night? Well, since you asked...here are some of my thoughts that go into this.
1. Worship is really important. It is in worship that we have the greatest opportunity to experience the presence of God. Worship is important to our spiritual life. Worship is where transformation begins, continues and moves us forward. So worship is important to the Christian life.
2. Culture has changed and Sunday morning at 11:00 is no longer the "sacred" hour for worship. We are committed to multiple worship experiences. We realize that many people travel and have a multitude of other commitments and opportunities on the weekend. So we want to provide a time for worship that does not conflict.
3. The preacher for the weekend will preach the Thursday night service. The sermon on Thursday is the same as the one on Saturday and Sunday. It is not a "devotion" time. It is a worship service. Thursday night gets the same thing Sunday gets.
A couple of other things. We have now had two Thursday night ReNew services. 59 and 72 people have taken advantage of the service. In my opinion "50" is a number that indicates a meaningful worship experience. So we have begun in the range we need in order to provide a quality experience.
We are planning the thursday night service for 10 weeks this summer. I have no idea how the service will progress. If people take advantage of this opportunity and God blesses it we may in fact make this a regular part of our church. If it does not meet a need we are not going to push it.
I see our staff having an attitude of "whatever it takes." We are committed to offering ourselves in whatever way we need to in order to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the future I see churches needing to have even more worship experiences to reach a changing world. This summer's Thursday night service anticipates this coming reality.
The bottom line is....if you are not going to be in town or available for worship on the weekend, come on Thursday night. Worship is an important value we hold and the expectation is that people will worship each week unless they are sick or out of town. I believe you will be blessed and your experience of Jesus Christ will be enhanced through the passionate worship we engage in at PWUMC.
steve