Sunday only?

Well, you know the old standby tongue in cheek joke:

"Those that attend Sunday morning love the preacher. Those that attend Sunday night love the church, and those that attend Wednesday night services love the Lord!"

 

LaymansTermsPlease, I really like that.

 

I personally feel that going just to Sunday morning service is only being "luke warm". Kind of like trying to do just enough to squeek by. Going to Sunday morning and evening service is like devoting an entire to worshipping the Lord. And attending Wednesday night service is like telling God that He is worth your time and you take the opportunity mid week for worship and fellowship because you just can't wait a whole week to come back!

In Christ,
Deborah

 

I love the Lord very dearly, and serve and worship Him EVERY DAY, not just times there are church services. I only attend on Sunday mornings. I believe that Sundays were designed by the Lord to be a day of both worship AND rest. All my life in an independent Baptist church, I've seen my family and others run themselves ragged on Sundays, ignoring the REST part of it, and then tear their families apart when they get home, because they are so stressed out. It does no good to run one so ragged, and then come home and let the devil take what you supposedly had just learned about the Lord.

Here are 2 wonderful websites to challenge the thinking that the more you "do" and "go" for the Lord, the better the Christian you are.

Say ‘No’ to Busyness!
Satan's Convention

 

Start discipling people then you will find you won't have time to feel unspiritual. Maybe be a missionary in a country where there are no churches then you won't have to worry about going to church. Evangelize the people and help them to start a church.

Now that I have said that. How many times have you invited your neighbors over for a barbeque or to have a meal with them? Often I have found that those who have a passion for being in church have done little to knock on doors or get to know their neighbors. In one town I pastored the neighbors told us we were the best neighbors of all the pastors that had lived next to them. We have always gotten to know our neighbors. You cannot share your faith with someone you do not know or care about.

If you were to start two or three new Bible studies and begin knocking on doors regularly you will find that those church meetings will take on less and less of a part in your life because you will see that you have something to give to others. If you spend about two hours per day studying and praying you will find that you will get little encouragement from those services compared to the fellowship you have with God. When you do come to a service, you will have something to give and share instead of being needy.

Most churches that I have pastored I have done away with Wed. night stuff. Most of the time it is nothing more than a gossip session called prayer. What I have done is to start home Bible studies which are much more effective and the people get to know each other better. Plus they get a whole lot more Bible.

In the Bible studies I led they would spend at least two hours to as much as seven hours per week, come on Sunday to listen to a forty minute sermon, pray for about 45 minutes on Sunday, have a two hour Bible study once a week and as part of that we prayed, then have a one hour Sunday School. Imagine how much Bible they got. Most of those people led another Bible study. Once a week I took one of the men to knock on doors with me. I also took some during the week to do ministry with.

Most of the time I found out that the majority of people who were leaders were poorly equipped to do evangelism and make disciples and they knew little about their neighbors because they were always at church.

In one church I actually did away with almost everything because the leaders told me they were so busy at church doing "things" but could not answer simple questions about their neighbors. What happpened in the following years is that the church became alive. When I came the church was nearly dead. It had lost its pastor and building. Today it has a very nice parcel of land on a major highway and has a nice church building. It is still doing well today.

 

Dr. Bob, I think your church is doing it right. When I look on our church calendar, there is something going on nearly every day of the week, that a "faithful" Christian is expected to be there and to "support" the church. I look at it in dismay and wonder when are families supposed to be together? I know too many men in our church that will be there, but will go home and be absolutely cruel to his wife and children, because he's under so much pressure. If a man or woman gives so much to his church, that he has nothing left over to his family (that is supposed to be first before church!) or witnessing to his neighbors, then his/her priorities are so wrong!

I quit taking my children to Awanas 2 years ago (after 7 years of it), and there is such a peace here and lack of stress. Now I can love and disciple my children in the Lord, without jumping through someone else's hoops. Awanas caused the worst stress for me than anything else.

BTW, I really resent when preachers say that folks stay home from church to do something else. That is not what WE do. We stay home to REST and grow as a family.

 

Don't you have six other days and nights during the week to do that? I don't think that meeting with our church family once a week for an hour or two is what God wants. There is a purpose for meeting with other believers and that can't be accomplished by only attending a few hours a week.

On the other hand, we have many hours during the rest of the week to spend with our families. Maybe the real issue is that we have too many other outside activities during the week that we don't have enough time to spend with our spouses and kids. Maybe Saturday should be family day and Sunday designated as the Lord's day.

I learned long ago that the most important part of a church is to come to worship the Lord together with our spiritual family. As well, we are to edify and encourage one another. All other activities . . . I don't feel bad about not attending anymore because those things are not the reason we are to be there.

Julia

 

Don't you have six other days and nights during the week to do that? I don't think that meeting with our church family once a week for an hour or two is what God wants. There is a purpose for meeting with other believers and that can't be accomplished by only attending a few hours a week.

On the other hand, we have many hours during the rest of the week to spend with our families. Maybe the real issue is that we have too many other outside activities during the week that we don't have enough time to spend with our spouses and kids. Maybe Saturday should be family day and Sunday designated as the Lord's day.

I learned long ago that the most important part of a church is to come to worship the Lord together with our spiritual family. As well, we are to edify and encourage one another. All other activities . . . I don't feel bad about not attending anymore because those things are not the reason we are to be there.

Julia </font>[/QUOTE]I knew someone would say this. The Lord gave us Sunday as BOTH the day of rest and worship. It is not restful for me, especially as a single mother, to run back and forth to church and/or a myriad of other activities that they insist is the only test of a true faithful Christian. As for other activities during the week, we are involved in NOTHING else! I homeschool every day, have a home business, and work hard in my home daily. We go to the grocery store once a week and that is it. We have one homeschool activity we attend once a month, and one field trip that we attend once a month, if interested, and/or if it is possible for us to go. That is all that we do!

As far as other folks I know, most men work 6 days a week and then have to spend most of their only day off RUNNING here and there (church). They then come home and literally tear their home apart because they are under such intense stress. I lived through that growing up, as well as see it in other men of our church. No wonder so many of them resent church! I believe there would be nothing wrong with that man only attending one service and then resting for the remainder of the day. God did say we needed one day of rest per week, which most Christians seem to ignore.

If it is not stressful and detrimental to one's family to attend several church services, then that is ok, but just because others can not go, does not make them any less of a Christian or mean that they are not walking with God. Neither does it mean that they do not desire fellowship with other believers.

BTW, the majority of those faithful, be-there-every-service-Christians, rarely take time to even read the Word, pray, or have regular family worship with their families. THAT is the TRUE test of a faithful and true Christian. I'm not saying that is you or anyone on this board, but that is the majority of Christians.

There are several wonderful articles here that are much more expressive in saying what I'm trying to say:
http://www.visionforumministries.org/sections/ncfic/default.asp

Pay special attention to:
Returning to Biblical Order in the Church and the Home
There is nowhere where the turning away is so vividly illustrated, as in the schedule of the average church, and in the behavior of the average father in his home.

Restoring the Household for Equipping and Evangelism
We need to restore the role of the household that we see in the ministry of Jesus and the expansion of the early church. As Michael Green has said, “One of the most important methods of spreading the gospel in antiquity was by the use of homes.”

 

Did you not make the statement, “ I personally feel that going just to Sunday morning service is only being "luke warm". Kind of like trying to do just enough to squeek by. Going to Sunday morning and evening service is like devoting an entire to worshipping the Lord. And attending Wednesday night service is like telling God that He is worth your time and you take the opportunity mid week for worship and fellowship because you just can't wait a whole week to come back!
In Christ,
Deborah


Before you say they are not your experiences read http://www.bibleteacher.org/Dm118_8.htm and then tell us what you think.


What do you think when Jesus spoke the words, “Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead."

Why do you think Jesus spoke Mt. 7:21-23, "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord ,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord , did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'

Where are those people found in Mt. 7:21-23?

 

And who are you to judge another's spiritual condition, based upon church attendance? Please.

 

Yet has no problem with casting her own assupmtion:

 

Is there a scripture for this?

To be honest, I don't see where God's word specificially says that Sunday is a day of rest. The Sabbath was given as a day of rest and we should take advantage of that. But I've not seen anywhere in the Bible where it says Sunday is a day of rest.

I do agree that we need a day of rest. As a homeschooling mom of five kids, I can wholeheartedly relate. I just can't see that it's Sunday.

Julia

 

In the 10 Commandments, the Lord says:

Exodus 20:8-11
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

Being that now Christians worship and "hallow" Sunday, I believe these verses apply to Sundays. It's always been tradition (not that tradition makes things Gospel! lol) for businesses to close and work to cease on Sundays. I don't know about you, but my weekdays from Monday-Saturday are full of work. And traditional Sundays, getting yourself and kids ready, Sunday School, morning worship, back home, undressing everyone, resting briefly, getting kids and self ready again, evening worship, plus any teen activities after that, choir practices, etc, makes Sundays the most stressful, most tiresome day of the week! I've heard this said woefully by many every-service kinds of church goers.

Now if we reject that these verses mean Sunday now, and feel like the above verses apply only to Saturday, the Sabbath, then it's ok for a man or woman to work a job on Sundays and to skip church altogether, correct? And working on a job on Sundays has been one of the worst sins I've heard spoken about from the pulpit.

 

Dr. Bob, please don't call things you don't agree with nonsense. And everyone else who is obviously against church programs, please don't dismiss them as a burden. Each and every one of you who is against Awana's or RA's (do they even still have that?) etc. seem to have your focus on you. "It's so hard to run my kids around, back and forth," or "the pressure is too much and it causes dads and moms to be mean to their families."

WOW! Talk about a crutch. I recently involved in an incident in which I was almost stabbed. The assailant and I were rolling around on the ground as I was trying to gain control of him and he whipped out a knife and almost got me. It was one of the scarriest and most stressful things I've ever been through. Things similar to this happen at my job every day (as most of you can imagine) and it is very stressful being a cop. However, I do not take it home and out on my family. That would be stupid.

Concerning Awana's, my four year old daughter absolutely loves going to Awana's and is learning scripture, etc. It's great as a parent to have fun resources for the children that relates to them at their level, and then watching them grow as we (mom and dad) follow up on that in the home. One of the best times of the week is when my wife, daughter, and I pray at the foot of her bed on Sunday night. My point of that was to say when I get home on Wednesday night, tired, stressed, sore sometimes, I purposefully push my focus to my daughter instead of me, and remind myself how much she loves going to Awana's. It is well worth the hour round trip to get her there and back.

Also, Dr. Bob, I personally feel it is awful to have most children in a grownup church service. Too many times I have seen the Holy Spirit moving in a service, and from the back comes the cry of an impatient 4 year old who could care less to be there, or a 10 year old who isn't mature enough yet to handle what's being discussed (and I understand every child is different, as I loved church since I could remember). But don't diss other churches or the mentality that the children should have their own forum for worship and learning. It only makes sense, and there is not a Biblical mandate against it, so to each their own.

I'd like you a lot more, Dr. Bob, if you weren't to black and white. It's kind of annoying, actually.

 

Whoever thinks Sunday is a day of rest isn't a Baptist!

Tomorrow, after Sunday School and church, I have 2 VERY long meetings! The first one offers a lunch but is a 2 hour plus meeting and the second meeting starts at 4:00 and will last until approx. 6:30. All of these meetings could have been today or tonight. Since they deal with my 2 committees (I'm NOT the chairperson) for only a few minutes of that time, I may skip and let the chairpeople update me while I care for my sick family. I will attend S/S unless I catch this stomach flu!

That being said: We attend and teach Sunday School and Nick and I are in the second service. My husband helps with the sound system so he's in both morning services. We help with a discipleship class 9 months out of the year on Sunday afternoon. Visitation is on a rotating Tuesday night and we attend as many as possible. I'm the AWANA Cubbie Director 9 months out of the year on Wednesday nights (while Mom and Dad attend Prayer Meeting) and teach VBS every year. Last summer I also taught the children every Wednesday night but have chosen not to do that this year. I need a break too!

I haven't missed Sunday School in over 2 years and that previous year was only once. I have missed AWANA 1 time in 5 years and that was last year.

Edited to point out that we almost never attend late service on Sunday night.

[ April 09, 2005, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: dianetavegia ]

 

Jason, you are a wonderful man not to take your job out on your family. But there ARE others that do, and I have lived it and seen it in other folks.

If you read in my other post, I said if one could go to several services and activities without it stressing them or being difficult, then that is good. But PLEASE don't criticize those that cannot and say it is a crutch. Please don't judge our walk with the Lord.

I put my 3 children first every single day of my life. I stay home full time with them, despite hardships, and also homeschool them, and always have. Homeschooling is a very important, fulfilling responsibility, but is very hard. It demands a parent put the children first, and it certainly draws you closer to the Savior, as He prunes you daily!

 

RIght on, Mom. You are correct and I can see how your statements were not an all encompassing blanket on your priorities. THanks for correcting me. =)