Morning and evening services
OK! I think my original intention all those months ago was to see if anyone knew whether the evening service was an anglo-saxon innovation or a continental loss - that is whether the British invented it or the continentals dropped it at some time.
Several people made excellent suggestions, but it seems to me that we can't say for sure based on what people have said on this blog. Nothing that I have found on the internet gives me much confidence either way, and I don't think any of the books I have here will help either. Certainly the 1549 Book of Common Prayer (Edward VI & Cranmer) has forms for morning and evening services. The book was strongly influenced by Geneva, Zurich and the Lutherans. So there we are. Almost 500 years of evening worship in Britain.
As for the importance and usefulness of evening services and the reasons for having them - well there's a lot of opinions expressed on the web. Here's an extract from the website of an American presbyterian church.
First, provision was made in the liturgical regulation of the tabernacle and temple for both morning and evening sacrifices and these were explicitly required to be continued on the Sabbath day (Numbers 28:1-10). Second, Psalm 92, which is explicitly identified as a psalm “For the Sabbath Day,” reads, “It is good…to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night” (cf. Ps. 134:1). Third, in the New Testament we have record of evening worship on the Christian Sabbath, that is Sunday (Acts 20:7) and we have it in a book that very clearly intends to set before us facts representative of the life of early Christianity. Interestingly, what might be called the first Sunday “service” of the new epoch took place at night when the Lord on Easter evening met his disciples gathered in a room in Jerusalem. Fourth, just as morning has a special significance in the history of salvation (e.g. our Saviour rose from the dead in the morning), so many events have sanctified the evening (e.g. the Saviour’s birth, the transfiguration, the struggle in Gethsemane, etc.). There is something appropriate in the church worshipping at the time that recollects such sacred and important events. Fifth, there is the consistent witness of the Christian tradition, from early Christianity, to English Puritanism and Scottish Presbyterianism’s “afternoon” service, to Anglican evensong. Sixth, there are a variety of practical considerations that, together, strongly recommend the practice of an evening worship service on the Sabbath Day.
In the absence of an evening service here in France it does give the opportunity to establish something in another language - that is, if English or Chinese-speaking services took place on the evening then people could also be encouraged to attend a French church in the morning.
Several people made excellent suggestions, but it seems to me that we can't say for sure based on what people have said on this blog. Nothing that I have found on the internet gives me much confidence either way, and I don't think any of the books I have here will help either. Certainly the 1549 Book of Common Prayer (Edward VI & Cranmer) has forms for morning and evening services. The book was strongly influenced by Geneva, Zurich and the Lutherans. So there we are. Almost 500 years of evening worship in Britain.
As for the importance and usefulness of evening services and the reasons for having them - well there's a lot of opinions expressed on the web. Here's an extract from the website of an American presbyterian church.
First, provision was made in the liturgical regulation of the tabernacle and temple for both morning and evening sacrifices and these were explicitly required to be continued on the Sabbath day (Numbers 28:1-10). Second, Psalm 92, which is explicitly identified as a psalm “For the Sabbath Day,” reads, “It is good…to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night” (cf. Ps. 134:1). Third, in the New Testament we have record of evening worship on the Christian Sabbath, that is Sunday (Acts 20:7) and we have it in a book that very clearly intends to set before us facts representative of the life of early Christianity. Interestingly, what might be called the first Sunday “service” of the new epoch took place at night when the Lord on Easter evening met his disciples gathered in a room in Jerusalem. Fourth, just as morning has a special significance in the history of salvation (e.g. our Saviour rose from the dead in the morning), so many events have sanctified the evening (e.g. the Saviour’s birth, the transfiguration, the struggle in Gethsemane, etc.). There is something appropriate in the church worshipping at the time that recollects such sacred and important events. Fifth, there is the consistent witness of the Christian tradition, from early Christianity, to English Puritanism and Scottish Presbyterianism’s “afternoon” service, to Anglican evensong. Sixth, there are a variety of practical considerations that, together, strongly recommend the practice of an evening worship service on the Sabbath Day.
In the absence of an evening service here in France it does give the opportunity to establish something in another language - that is, if English or Chinese-speaking services took place on the evening then people could also be encouraged to attend a French church in the morning.
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