I have heard some people recently decry churches who have stopped their corporate mid-week meeting or to meet in home Bible studies instead. Their reasoning is that the church “should” get together during the week to pray, have fellowship and learn from the Word.
I certainly have no problem with a church meeting for those purposes at any time. The question that comes to mind is this, “Is a mid-week meeting mandatory from scripture?” Of course, the simple answer is no.
Is a mid-week meeting beneficial?
I believe this question needs to be answered by each local church. It would be inappropriate for anyone to make a blanket analysis that applies to every church. It may very well be that it is beneficial. It also may be that it is not.
In our assembly we have found that having a variety of options for getting together serves our assembly the best. So we have a mix of home studies as well as a Bible study at the chapel building. We have moved our prayer time to Sundays so that the greater number of people can be praying together.
What should our attitude be?
A more important question is how we should treat those who practice their meeting structure differently from our own. There “should” be no condescending or critical attitudes towards those who no longer have a corporate meeting or towards those who do.
There is no biblical basis for a “should” or “should not” in this case. Therefore it is well within scripture for each local church to schedule and format their meetings as they see best for their church family.
Let’s praise God for the flexibility we have to pray, learn, fellowship and grow together in a body that is unified as a family. His plans for the church are wonderful!
Crawford Paul
Crawford is an elder at Rolling Meadows Bible Chapel in Ontario and has a passion for the assemblies. He and his wife Beth serve in various ways within the assembly to build up and encourage the believers. He is president of Legacy Ministries Canada, an organization focused on helping individual Christians, local churches and Christian organizations with financial, legal and governance matters. Check it out at legacycanada.org
Taken from AssemblyHub.com
