Doug De Vries describes Sunday evening worship as “a lot less formal” than the morning service at Plymouth Heights Christian Reformed Church.
It’s also a lot less crowded.
Plymouth Heights is in step with a larger trend of declining evening attendance in evangelical denominations that long have cherished a heritage of worshiping twice on Sunday. Some evening services are more intimate; others have been cancelled or replaced by an alternative.
“It’s a business question that has been asked,” said De Vries, the church’s minister of music. “People are spending time with their family (on Sunday nights) or using that time to get together in small groups. We were concerned that we were squandering resources to put the evening service together.”
This is similar to the decline of Vespers or Evening Prayer in our tradition. Fewer and fewer churches offer this but some churches are offering a choral Compline service that attracts lots of folk. My church does Vespers on Wednesdays during Advent and Lent (ELCA). Here is an example of several local churches with very successful Evening Prayer type services:
http://www.christchurchrochester.org/music/
I hope to spend some time here one day (Holden Vespers):
http://www.holdenvillage.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=112&Itemid=73