1) Helpful
Attending Sunday evening worship is helpful to the Christian life and rhythm. Primarily it provides more worship, fellowship, and prayer opportunities. These avenues and outlets for the Christian life are the primary means that the Holy Spirit nourishes our souls today. We are pruned, nourished, built up, and exercising our spiritual growth through these times together.
Beyond the simple numerical increase, an evening service helps structure a rhythm to the Christian life in the Lord’s Day, Morning and Evening.
First, the Lord’s Day will begin to be seen as a full day for your soul’s refreshment and not merely a ‘Lord’s Morning.’ The fourth commandment reminds us that God labored six days and rested a whole seventh. God did not merely take the morning off before mowing the grass.[2] Likewise, our souls need the whole Lord’s day for rest and refreshment. Second, we and creation were crafted with a morning/evening pattern. The creation account tells us God labored Evenings and Mornings to create a flourishing world. In the two worship services, the Lord continues his labors to restore and feed towards the flourishing of his people.
Third, the Evening Service takes on the temperament and flow of the faithful walking with God. Life can often feel like a whirlwind of busyness, seemingly turning back to the chaos of Gen 1:2. Having an Evening service serves to help our minds and hearts slow the rat race and walk with God. Not a sprint or cartwheels of chaos, but a sustainable pace of a refreshing walk with our Father. God walks with the righteous (Gen 5:22; 6:9; 17:1; Deut 19:9; Micah 6:8).
2) Historical
Indeed, there is no single biblical mandate like, ‘Thou shall have an evening service.’ But there are plenty of things that are good for us that are not stated in the Ten Words of Deut 5 or Exo 20. However, running through the Bible is a narrative of spending time with the Father and being nourished morning and evening.
In Exodus 16:8, the Lord gave meat in the evening and bread in the morning. The feeding of God’s covenant people has a rhythm to it. The practices of God in redemptive history also tell us that the morning and evening services are different.
Psalm 92:2 tells us it is good “to declare your faithful love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.” Other references to worship and temple service in morning and evening rhythms: Num 28:1–10; Exo 28:38–39; Ezra 3:3; Psa 55:17; 65:8; 134:1; Acts 3:1 John and Peter are going to afternoon prayer service; Acts 12:12 the people are in evening prayer).
Early Church
The early church did not argue for having two services; it was an assumed and universal practice. A cursory glance finds: Origen (2nd century) talked about the saints morning and evening worship (Commentary John, 6.34; cf. Eusebius Histories 2.17.9); the Constitutions of the Apostolic Church tells church leaders to “command and exhort them to come constantly to church morning and evening” (Const. Apost 2.59; cf. Sozomen, Eccles. Hist. and HE 8.7); the great preacher Chrysostom also assumes the practices in his Commentary Acts:7:54; 1 Tim 2:1-4; cf. Hillary of Poitiers, 9.xlvii).
Reformation
During the Reformation of the 15-16th century, the Protestant churches adamantly renewed their commitment to holding morning and evening worship services. Even a cursory study of the early protestant churches indicates they all had multiple Sunday services, often three or more.
[1] Of course, we are not referring to sappy, fleeting happiness. But a deep-seated joy in the heart.
[2] See also WCF 21.7
[3] Edwards, Sermons, and Discourses, 14.145–46.