Part of a Sunday series on “the second service,” Sunday night worship. Memories, bane, and blessings.

I am decades removed and states away from evening service at Hanford (California) Christian Reformed Church. My memories are blurred and fragmented, like looking through the jewel-toned stained glass that still graces the sanctuary on the corner of Cortner and Leoni.

There was never a question of skipping evening service. We always attended, unless we were ill, the five of us lined up in a pew about five rows from the front — on the left if mom was playing the piano, on the right if she was playing the organ. 

I remember the reluctance to put Sunday clothes back on after a restful afternoon. Emptier pews, fewer babies in nursery, and muted conversations during the prelude. In summer, I remember the promise of Superior Dairy ice cream after the service. In winter, I remember Tule fog hovering over the parking lot, halos of moisture crowning the lights. I do not remember a single sermon.

I remember feeling less “buttoned up,” slightly more relaxed, with fewer cautioning glances from our parents and more pink wintergreen mints in our pockets. My dad’s sport coat was exchanged for a sweater, the rich tones of the organ were sometimes swapped out for intricate piano hymn arrangements. In the morning, we were one of the last cars out of the parking lot. At night, bedtime beckoned and conversations were truncated, sometimes limited to a quick word or a quiet wave.

Sunday night church relaxed a few unspoken (but clearly present) rules. There wasn’t always a sermon. Missionaries sometimes stepped into that space (but often in the social hall instead of the pulpit), sharing stories and photographs, providing context for their work, inspiration for tithing, and a break for our pastor. Choirs and bands from Dordt and Calvin performed, making their occasional stop on a Central Valley tour. I remember scanning the faces of college students, trying to find the cutest boy and dreaming of one day singing in a choir like that, braiding our voices in song. 

On Sunday nights, my twin sister and I could sit with friends. After spending a glorious afternoon on their dairy, swimming in their pool, and primping in preparation for our return to church, we would tumble into their pew at the end of the day, sunburned and tired, but full of stories and laughter.

We seemed to grow out of the evening church rhythm in our high school years — when my sister and I, part of a choir of our own, traveled to other churches to sing. Our family traveled with us. And suddenly Sunday night church attendance became uneven and sporadic. 

Eventually, when I was in my mid-twenties, I took a job out of state. On a hot August night in 1994, the night before a two-day family road trip to transport me (and my limited belongings) to Denver, we five set aside the packing and the lists of things to do — and all of the emotional baggage as well — and went to evening service. It was a fitting end to my time at Hanford CRC.

Years later, I was asked to play the piano for a tiny remnant of a large Denver congregation at the evening service. As we sang hymns in the shadows of dusk, it was clear that the sun was setting on the “two times on Sunday” tradition, an incremental loss for some, a sigh of relief for others. 

To be honest, I’ve thought very little about Sunday night church since then. I never thought much about it even when it bookended our Sabbath rhythm. It was just something the Tos family did — a commitment as routine as the pot roast we ate and the football we watched at Grandma and Grandpa Tos’ house almost every Sunday after morning service. 

As a child, I never recognized the fact that Sunday was not a day of rest for my mom as she often played for both services, sometimes even heading to church in the afternoon to practice her prelude and offertory. I never realized that my dad would get a phone call from his mom — my grandmother — if we missed a service. 

Faith is more a tapestry woven by experience than a series of boxes to check or hoops to jump through. And although Sunday night church attendance often felt like the latter, these experiences became a piece of the messy tapestry that is my faith. It created more of a throughline and touchpoint in my life than I realized.

My memories of evening service are tinged with both ambivalence and gratitude, blurred by time and nostalgia. But I’ve come to a surprising conclusion: I liked evening service best. Not the required part, but the less rigid and more hospitable part — the part like the Sunday morning services I attend now, where I still find warmth in those who gather in pews framed by stained glass, more often in sweaters than sport coats.

Header photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash
Stained glass photo by Carol Highsmith’s America on Unsplash