Below is a post off of my blog on dmJuice.com. I included it here because I think it could prove valuable for discussion.
I have been thinking about writing a book lately. I would call the book, “No More Sundays” (a play off of the hugely popular “No More Mondays” by Dan Miller).
“What’s behind the title?” you ask. Well, it seems that in my life I tend to segregate what happens on Sunday mornings as “church” and the rest of the week is “not church.” I don’t make these distinctions intentionally, but years of cultural conditioning have programmed compartments in my brain to better categorize this experience called “life”:
Work = Monday - Friday; 9-5pm.
Drive = Right side of the road.
Eat = Three meals per day.
Church = Sometime on Sunday morning.
I have been really challenged lately by some words I read regarding what “going to church” should look like. The author I’m reading says this to some of his friends about what “church” is all about, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. This, my friends, is your spiritual act of worship.” Simple words if I’ve ever heard them.
So back to my book, “No More Sundays”. I am certainly not saying that we should all stop going to church on Sundays. That would be missing the point. Or, as a mentor of mine likes to say it, “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” What Iamsaying is that we need to re-evaluate what we consider “church.” Is “the church” a place that I go to or is the church an identity that I have whether I am in a church building or not? An identity that follows me around in my “everyday, ordinary life”?
I say “No More Sundays” because I am becoming increasingly more fond of resting on Sundays. As in “sleeping in until noon” rest. As in not going to church. As followers of Jesus, we do need to be in communication with other believers; reading God’s word together, worshiping together through music and prayer and the sacraments. This much is true. But does this have to happen on a Sunday morning? What about a Saturday night? A Tuesday night? Or, I don’t know - just throwing this out there - a Thursday night?
I don’t have all the answers so in the meantime, my wife and I are really enjoying our Sunday mornings together. Not to sound trite, but it’s in those moments - resting next to her, making scrambled eggs for her, having a hot cup of coffee in between - that my soul, my spirit, is most at rest. After all, isn’t that what the Sabbath is all about?
Technorati Tags: Assumptions, Christianity, Culture, Sundays
