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my experience from this past sunday has filled me with mixed emotions as i reflect. some say that reflection is cathartic. i suppose i would agree, especially this week.
we had at least 60-70 of our regular church family missing on sunday. quite a few more, if i include some faithful shoppers and good folks that have been a little sporadic in their attendance over the past six months. for most of the people who were missing, i could chalk it up to family commitments, illness or travel. even so, it was still a difficult sunday.
here are a few of my personal insights:
i grew up in a church environment that left me with the habit of feeling overwhelmingly guilty whenever i had to miss “church” on sunday mornings. those times that i missed, i always felt like i was letting god down and not being the kind of christian i was supposed to be!
in the past 15 years, i have repeatedly repented of that way of defining my discipleship. i have preached more about the grace of god and the freedom we have because of the cross in the past six or seven years than i did in the previous thirty!!
when i came to north point years ago, one of the major items on my job description was to make sure that i taught our people to place the building of healthy marriages and family lives ahead of church programs and activities over the long haul.
i have worked hard to model this priority…even as the head honcho of north point programming.
i have faithfully taught that the old system of law and the incessant effort to prove our worth and acceptability to god was cancelled at calvary. good works are fruit that flow from our love for god and our response to his mercy…not our ticket to heaven.
with that as the back drop, one of the things that people have consistently said to me over the years is how grateful they have been to find a church that didn’t constantly make them feel guilty for missing on a sunday or beat them up for saying “no” to things that placed undo pressure on already hectic family lives. i love being a church that lives out the freedom we have in christ.
it’s just a tough pill to swallow when so many people choose to enjoy their freedom on the same sunday morning.
that’s what i’m thinking. what about you? how do you respond to this?
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