BLOG 2/4/15. “THEY DO IT EVERY SUNDAY” … WHY?

BLOG 2/4/15. “THEY DO IT EVERY SUNDAY” – WHY?

“They do it every Sunday,

They’ll be over it on Monday,

It’s only a habit they’ve acquired.”

That little limerick percolates up out of my past from time to time. It was a spoof on so many habitual churchgoers, whose participation seems disconnected from any dynamic sense of calling into the mission of God. It has a companion bit of poetic whimsy also from somewhere in my past:

“The clock on the courthouse stuck twelve,

And the Presbyterian Church on the corner gave up its dead,

Back to the world where they knew how to live.”

If you pursue what may be behind those somewhat snarky bits of verse (verse?), it does raise the question as to whether the church gathering together from Sunday to Sunday has a dynamic purpose in furnishing God’s people for their encounter with their weekly context: the decisions, the persons, the difficult or even impossible dilemmas that so often will confront them as they seek to walk as children of the light. If I can’t relate to what happens on Sunday morning to my calling as one of God’s New Humanity (like maybe on Thursday arfternoon), then that which is called worship may be irrelevant to the mission of God (or maybe: Who needs it?).

I grew up in one of those families, and at that time, when one simply “went to church” on Sunday—that’s what you did. It never crossed my mind as to why we went, and as I grew into adolescence what took place in that Sunday gathering was something of an escape from all of the stuff of the week, so that we could gather with congenial friends, and do our church thing.

When I became a pastor, and began to spend significant time with the folk I had been called to serve in that (often ill-defined) role, I also realized that what we did for those couple of hours on Sunday was to be formative. Now I’ve got sixty years of experience in church leadership behind me, and from time to time am sought out by those who are now my pastors, so that they can process their lives and function with me, and pick my brain on what I have learned.

So, let me assert, right up front: I believe that every baptized person is called to be a minister 24/7 (check out Ephesians 4:11-12) in whatever those other six days may hold. They need to be equipped to be mature in that sense of calling to be children of light whatever that entails for them. What church leadership needs to be keenly focused on is the assurance that when God’s people are together in what we call ‘worship,’ that at least three things take place: 1.) God’s people are encouraged by sharing in praise and adoration of the Triune God with others of God’s people (as well as drinking coffee and sharing life). 2.) God’s people are equipped by engaging profoundly with the Word of God, so that a strong Biblical pulpit/teaching ministry moves them toward more maturity as God’s people in a very real and complex cultural and societal setting, and realistically—not dodging issues. 3.) God’s people are re-evangelized week by week as they share in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and remember Jesus’ life death and resurrection, and the cost of their vows of discipleship.

They/we need to ‘have our windshields cleaned,’ to be refreshed and given heart for our walk with God in whatever unknowns lie before them. The church should not “give up its dead”—but rather energize and equip them to walk as the sons and daughter of Light, to ‘be Christ’ in all they encounter in the week that follows. Such worship is a huge and necessary blessing. Not purposeless religious habit, but rather our regular re-charging. O, yes!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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