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What Does the Bible Say About..When to Assemble?

What does the Bible teach about what day of the week you go to church. I prefer the Wednesday evening services it is a study of the word and worship as well My children attend their Bible groups as well. I work in home day care and then I go to a center when my husband gets home from his job so our children have the benefit of my preschool teacher education. I love going to church but my Mother in law harasses me about going on Sunday in front of people even at calling hours for a friend! I would like to know if it matters to God what day of the week I go Sunday is the only day we get to sleep in some. Your insight appreciated.

Answer

Please go to Topical List of Questions and find the topic “assembly.” There you will find several of my answers about attending the assembly of the church. Please also go to Topical List of Articles and look up “the Sabbath and Sunday” to find my previous articles about why Christians assemble on Sunday rather than Saturday.

If your only reason for not attending on Sunday is because that is the only day you can sleep in, then it won’t do you much good to attend on Wednesday, or any other day, because you are saying that sleep is more important than worshiping God with other Christians. (That may sound a little harsh, especially in writing, but our priorities show where are real interests lie.)

The next time somebody harasses you about not attending on Sunday, though, you might ask them why they don’t assemble on Monday, Tuesday (some churches do), Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:46-47) This would indicate a daily assembly, such as was the Jewish practice.

While there is scriptural evidence for assemblies on Sunday, if one is not going to assemble with the church daily, why single out Wednesday (or Tuesday)? That is a practice that has only developed within the past century or two, and generally only in America or those congregations founded by Americans.

One argument against assembling only on Wednesday is that very few, if any, churches participate in the Lord’s Supper on Wednesday. Most do participate on Sundays, and some only once on Sunday even if they have more than one assembly. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul attributes spiritual weakness or death to a lack of participation in this memorial. If you find a congregation that offers it on a Wednesday, then there would be no reason you could not assemble only on that day.