In a day when I slept in and skipped church intentionally – the first day I wanted to in several years, and the one time my husband spoke the idea aloud as I was thinking it – I saw this from a New York Times article:
“I need God in my life, but I told the pastor, I get sleepy,†she said. “You have to stay in church from 1:30 to 5. I think if services were shorter, more entertaining I’d go.â€
It wasn’t until I read this that I had my first glimmer of guilt – but it was only a glimmer. The issue right now is that I’m in a period of spiritual flux (as evidenced by recent postings) and need something a bit deeper than the usual that I get at my new church (which is in all fairness not quite up to what I got at my former church).
I don’t feel that same ecstatic sweep of godly passion, I’m not learning in the same way, and I’m just not feeling it.
But that is QUITE different than putting off God because I can’t get my butt out of bed. And, “make it more entertaining” ?? Are you kidding? Now I’m not advocating stern, stiff services, like the kind people older than me experienced with Latin Catholic masses and such. Not at all.
But you don’t go to church for entertainment. You don’t go because you have nothing better to do on Sunday mornings (like sleep). You don’t go to catch up with friends, or show face in front of your priest/pastor/peers, etc. You don’t go because it’s what you’ve always done, and you don’t know what else to do. You don’t go because the Word will be fed to you so you don’t have to study on your own that day (guilty!)
You GO because you WANT to.
You GO to share worship with a community of (hopefully) similar minded believers.
You GO to feel God’s presence and fire in your life.
You GO for God.
We are so RIDICULOUSLY soft in this country, it’s sad. Think of Christians (and Jews and Moslems and all other faiths) in communist, anti-religion countries where people can be jailed or worse for creating a house church, which is the only way they can worship.
And here we are bothered by the inconvenience of going out of our to publicly worship our Creator, who gave us EVERYTHING?
Argh. It’s upsetting.
If you don’t believe don’t go. If you’re having a crisis of faith, well, maybe take a week or two off, or find another church or religion or path to God. Or find another day and way to worship the Lord regularly. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
But don’t be lukewarm and say it’s too hard to spend a small part of your Sunday in church.
I always worried about this verse:
But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. Rev. 3:16
But now I get it. I may be confused, lost, unsure, uncertain, and trying to find my footing, but I hope and pray that I will NEVER be lukewarm about my Lord, because I’m always passionate in just about everything else (a real flaw of mine, btw).