Strangers & Aliens

More and more churches are jettisoning their evening meetings. There are perfectly good reasons for it, many of which I understand and sympathise with. But there are also good reasons for keeping it in place. At the moment we plan our preaching series for the mornings (when most people are there) and allow ourselves the freedom to use the evenings more creatively.

That means that this Sunday, for example, I am preaching on Luke 8.26-39 in the morning. It raises all sorts of questions that Christians tend to have about the demonic world: what is it?; where is it?; should I be worried?; can I be possessed?; how do I stand against demons?; should the church be casting out demons more?

All these I can tackle in the evening meeting. I will do that by preaching Luke 8.26-39 again, but with a different emphasis, drawing out lessons and stressing the power of Jesus over the demonic world (and how Christians draw on that same power). In the morning, by contrast, my focus will be on how different groups respond to Jesus: following Jesus is answering the question, "Who is Jesus and what are you going to do about it?" Perhaps more on that soon.

Personally, I delight in the opportunity to take a subject and develop it for instruction, edification and warning - I guess it's like a 40 minute application to the morning sermon. Where else would you do that if you have no evening meeting? I guess you could preach for an hour in the morning, but, honestly, how many of our churches allow that to happen.....?