Richard Baxter writes here in favour of bringing back Gospel Services. Well actually, he doesn’t. He;s arguing for something else. I’ll come on to that a little later. I thought though first of all, it might be helpful to give a bit of background to the concept of the Gospel service.
Back in the 20th Century, these events would have been the staple diet of many churches, particularly from Brethren and other free church persuasions. It was the practice in the independent Methodist mission hall I grew up in and I understand you would have found similar in Pentecostal churches in in Northern Ireland among the Free Presbyterians.
For us, it meant that the evening service used what were considered livelier, Gospel hymns. If the morning service relied on the Methodist Hymnbook, the evening drew from a volume called Sacred Songs and Solos but known affectionately as Sankey” after Ira D Sankey, the musician who accompanied DL Moody on his evangelistic tours. The message was meant to be evangelistic, often with an appeal for people to respond in faith. I suspect that the use of “Sankey” reflected an attempt to continue the kind of atmosphere of those evangelistic mission campaigns into a weekly pattern, partly in hope that the method would continue to be effective and partly to provide familiarity for those who had engaged with the Gospel through such events.
By the time I was a youngster in the church, the concept was dying out. Gospel services still existed, they still used the different hymnbook, switching to Mission Praise in the light of Billy Graham’s last nationwide mission to the UK but primarily these were evening services with more Bible teaching and an opportunity to experiment with more contemporary worship styles, especially for more cautious churches.
As it happens, Richard is not seeking to go back and try those things again. For that reason alone, I think he would do better not to use the term and so conjure up unhelpful associations for those of us just old enough to remember the dying days of a tradition. The tradition died quite simply because non-Christians were not coming along. We might argue that the style had been set up to mimic the music hall and so act as a form of entertainment. It was the original seeker-sensitive/entertainment based evangelism and it simply could not compete This in itself is a case against our attempts to reintroduce anything similar. If our hope is to give something that will align with and compete with what is on offer outside of the church, we are unlikely to compete. Yet, I fear that this remains the mindset for a lot of attractional outreach models. The same thinking means that your evangelistic youth club will fail too.
What Richard seems to be recommending is the monthly “guest service”. Which actually, again is something that has been around for some time. Now, as it happens, I have no problem with using a Sunday sermon to address an apologetic question, nor do I have any issue with proclaiming the Gospel in our gatherings. I would argue that we should be proclaiming the Gospel, both for the potential non-Christians there and for Christians too. What do I need as a 49 year old who has been following Jesus most of my life? What does the 80 year old godly lady need as she faces health challenges? What do the young couple need who have been trusting Jesus since an Alpha course in the middle of the pandemic but are now anxious about their first child settling into school. Actually, we all need the Gospel still.
Richard notes that as it happens, their guest services are not much different in format to a normal weekly service. I think that’s a good thing but it raises the question “Why label then as a guest service.” Why not just let the church family know the planned preaching programme up front (as most churches do). They may conclude that a serviced asking “What is the answer to suffering?” or “How can we know that God created the world?” is exactly what their neighbour needs to hear. However, perhaps their neighbour will engage just as well with a Psalm about entering the depths of despair, some teaching on marriage and children from Ephesians or even what to do whent hey are ill with a look at James 5. We can assume too much about what it is that will scratch where seekers are itching.
However, here is the thing. In my experience, once you’ve set something out as different, even if the differences are small then you have three problems. First, the Christians thinking about inviting friends will consider that the differences aren’t that much different to normal, so why the fuss. Secondly, the non-Christians may be confused about your assumptions concerning them. Why do we assume for example that they can only listen for 15 minutes instead of the usual 25? Thirdly, if it is significantly different, then what happens the following week if they come back and it’s different to what they experienced the previous week? Isn’t it better to have consistency?
Actually, if you’ll read Richard’s article he picks up on much of this. That’s why he’s making only a three-quarter-hearted appeal. However, I personally think these are enough reasons not to bring it back either as a weekly or a monthly thing.
But, the important thing is this. Richard’s infectious desire to see your beautiful gospel proclaimed at every opportunity is something to admire and aspire to. So why not incorporate the things Richard does into your normal gatherings.
Faithroots 