What Place Sunday PM? Our fault?

So having focussed in and in until there's nowhere else to consider but the Christians themselves I get a little worried because what I'm seeing is a bunch of people who want church to provide what they want and to do it in the way that they want it at the time and in the place where they want it.

The "I want it all, my way, now!" The mantra of the Church, now, and in fact (I assume), was always!

In discussion with one person, they related situation where one of the faithful was aggrieved because they wanted the Taize services to be part of the main Sunday morning service. The reason was that they couldn't make the night it was being held each month as they went out to friends for dinner parties! When it was pointed out that such a move was impractical and would damage the main service and the Taize, the (now offended) church member stopped coming to everything.

The consumer society has made such an impact into the way that we live that we cannot countenance not being able to have something when we want it and on our terms. To come out on a Sunday evening isn't something that many people do, well not for Church, but we're all so wonderful at picking up and developing new habits that this should be just another one.

So what do we do to be habit-forming? Here's a few ideas:

i. Develop a relationship with all the people we can. If those inside the church won't come, why on earth (and how?) do we expect those outside to come when they have the added inertial load of knowing no one?

ii. Realise that if people haven't been to a place it's impossible to bring them back to it. This is true for those who have no faith and also for those who claim to have a faith. If people have never had Sunday pm as their reality then we are engaged in evangelism rather than restoration with regard to it!

iii. Here's the real issue, I guess. I've spend most of my faith life engaged in two (or more) services on a Sunday. It's part of my commitment to being a Christian and because I was encouraged to make that the case when I came to faith, later life sees it as being nothing other than normal. This raises the painful question, "How are we birthing and discipling our new believers?"

The answer to the the last question appears to be 'badly!'

So how are we going to address this issue? Shrug it off as a response to the way we lived in days gone by and point to the provision of the pm service as something that is historically and culturally irrelevant in our progressive times? Close the evening service and by doing so confirm the post-Christian status that some would assign today?

What indeed?