Sunday sluggishness

[banzai]

Nice to enjoy the patio again without fear of random interruption from our landlord. It's been good to swap stories: our upstairs neighbors are enjoying the same relief, and one of our former upstairs neighbors dropped by and commiserated with us over beer yesterday

Comments

[banzai]

barlow_girl and I talked about this yesterday morning-no doubt that the world, the flesh, and the devil all work together to keep us from worshipping God. When we serve the church during worship, we face not only our own attacks on these fronts, but also everyone else's. One of the best ways to have me sidelined from worship is to get me more preoccupied with my frustrations than with Him. But it's a tough battle, because those frustrations are my job, too!

The other part we talked about is what it means to be a good soldier on all three fronts-the devil is external, the flesh is internal, and the world is a bit of both. Scripture sketches out some strategy for us (as well as being our sword itself). I wish more of us were more often willing to acknowledge that getting to and being in Sunday worship is at least as likely to be a battle as it is to be a time to "get our needs met" (spiritual and otherwise), then approach it accordingly. If we believe spiritual reality as presented in Scripture to be true, why do we persistently set our Sunday agendas according to everything but that (and then, when there are disconnects, conclude that God isn't present or we aren't being fed rather than admitting we're trying to run our own program)?

If I'm not chief among sinners in this regard, I'm still probably pretty high in the chain of command. But come on-the truth is, most of us are being duped, regularly (and in large part by our selves), and need to wake up. We have all week to chat-seven days of twenty-four hours each! On Sundays, helping one another worship should be priority one, and we owe it to ourselves and one another to be mindful of this rather than sabotaging ourselves and the people we claim to love.

[unblinkable]

I think what bothers me most is the church's unwillingness to acknowledge this as not a good thing. I should say that ONE Sunday my pastor said something about challenging everyone to get to a seat three minutes early so that they can pray for the service. But it sounded more like a suggestion. The justice seeker in me just wants leadership to say, "Okay... what can we do to stop this. How about we talk to the welcome team and train them to encourage people to move on inside once the prelude starts? How about we we send out a blurb in our next newsletter that says something about the importance of corporate worship and everyone being together at that time? How about we have Kent shout in the microphone 'Okay, Chatty Cathies! Time to come inside!!!'"

But I know that this shouldn't bother me as much as it does. I notice wrong-doing in others SO much more than I notice it in myself. I just don't want to go the opposite direction and, as Diane says, "Give everyone free passes" just because it's easier to let it go with the flow and not rock the boat.