For a number of years, in addition to our monthly Psalm sing, we have had a Sunday evening service that we have held once a month, one which we called Evensong. A number of months ago, we shifted the emphasis of that service, making it explicitly evangelistic—church for non-Christians. We have been grateful for how it has gone, and are thankful that non-believers have been coming. Please continue to pray for that effort, and please feel free to bring non-Christian friends to it.
For some time, we have thought that we needed to change the name—it has never been a traditional Evensong service, and now it is even less so. And so the new name for this service is Threshold. There are two basic reasons for this, requiring a brief explanation.
The first is that nonbelievers who are willing to come to a presentation of the gospel are standing at the threshold of the church. They have not yet come in, but they are at least willing to think about it. Someone can be at your house without being inside it yet. When that happens they are standing at the threshold. This service is designed for people in just that position. They need to have some basic things about the gospel declared to them before they ring the doorbell.
Secondly, the Bible teaches that there is an influence from the church that crosses the threshold in the other direction. In the book of Ezekiel, the living water that is for the restoration of the whole world is water that flows out over the threshold of the Temple, getting deeper and deeper as it goes (Ez. 47:1). This is the kind of water that brings healing to all the nations of men—and it has to cross over the threshold, flowing out.
We do not want our evangelistic efforts to be just a cozy club, which we invite non-believers to join. We also want those efforts to be a genuine outreach. When Jesus said that He would make His disciples fishers of men, He meant that they were to go out where the fish were. That means crossing the threshold.