Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church

View Original

Why Sunday Night Fellowship?

Some of you remember Sunday Night Fellowship from years gone by. Others are new and, perhaps, a little curious.

It may seem a little silly to explain something that sounds so self-explanatory. The three words int he title are easy enough to understand and putting them all together doesn't exactly create a complex mathematical formula we can't comprehend. You know when Sunday is. You know morning from night. And if there's anything leaving room for lack of clarity, it's that word "fellowship." So, why an article about Sunday Night Fellowship?

The answer is that simply knowing what a thing is doesn't always tell you why it exists. And I want you to understand why SNF exists. 

If you can read the words Sunday and Night and Fellowship and have a pretty good handle on what to expect on these evenings, then you could just as easily read the first few chapters of the book of Acts and recognize some characteristics of the early church that fueled it's growth and the advancement of the gospel. Those characteristics we call the ordinary means of grace, characteristics like the preaching of God’s Word, prayer, participating in the sacraments, gospel community, worship, and service. You can find this list clearly listed at the end of Acts 2, but we see them portrayed over the next several chapters.

As it turns out, your session has had a few conversations recently about our commitment to the ordinary means of grace. We believe that these are the means that Christ has given to his church by which sinners are converted and saints are sanctified. And we want to make use of those means regularly and frequently.

Enter Sunday Night Fellowship. Our hope is that this event in the life of GCPC will serve a variety of purposes. Let me take a couple of weekly emails to call your attention tot he benefits of Sunday Night Fellowship in hopes of drawing you into committing to being there.

Gospel Community
Our snack time between worship and Sunday school is great, but it’s only so great. It’s short. Sometimes shorter if the preacher gets long winded. The room is small. Lengthy conversations are difficult. And it always feels like you’re in someone’s way. It’s wonderful, but it’s only as wonderful as it can be.

SNF will give us roughly two hours to eat together and pray together. We will eat promptly at 5:15 leaving you plenty of time to visit with the others around you. We won’t give the whole time to eating, but you won’t feel rushed, (well, the later you arrive, the more rushed you’ll feel).

In pursuit of gospel community, we will see you at 5:00pm on June 16.