After announcing my resignation from the blogworld of
"how can we do church better?" I thought that it would be worth
pondering a deeper question that I have about church: "Why bother with it
at all?" More specifically,
"Why bother taking a couple of hours out of my week to attend a church
"service."?
It's a question that many people in my country have answered
with "I don't bother!" Maclean's magazine reports that 80% of Canadians believe in God, and two-thirds of us that Jesus Christ is His
divine son. But only about 20% attend
anywhere on a typical Sunday morning. In
other words, "I like God and I believe in Jesus, but I don't see a real
connection between those things and gathering with other believers every
week."
Before I start, you need to
remember that for the past 18 years I've been financially supported by local churches
to plan and participate in their weekly assemblies. If there were no assemblies
(or people attending them) I would be out of a job! So there is an occupational motivation for me
to suggest that church attendance is "worth the bother." But my
experience also means that for 18 years almost every week I've been thinking
through the potential upside and downside of what happens on Sunday mornings.
I've wrestled with this question a lot. I am intimately familiar with the downside of organized religion and
the irrelevance, wasted resources, and problems with church assemblies (in fact,I
am pretty sure I have two problems for
every one problem you have with how church is done). I understand that "You can't go to the
church because the church is you." I know well the temptation to "start over" with a new
structure in a new place out of frustration with what I see at the moment. And yet, here I am...again, 18 years into it
and I'm still excited about the potential for our assembly in an established
church, in a church facility, this coming
Sunday.
Here is the first of my reasons for attending a church
service every week:
Habit.
We make habits out of the things that we value. There is no
such thing as “just a habit.” If it’s a habit it’s because you value something enough
to make it one. Take my teeth for example. I brush them every day because I
value healthy teeth (and fewer trips to the dentist). On the other hand I don’t
seem to value them enough to make flossing a daily habit (at least not beyond
the 2 weeks of guilt-induced flossing that I do after each professional cleaning). If I value the big picture enough I will make
habits that will create and color in that picture. Church attendance is a good
habit. It is a spiritual discipline. It is intentionally putting myself in a
position where I have the opportunity to grow spiritually.
Here’s some more about my habit.
It’s a habit of inconvenience. Someone described it like this: "I go to a place I didn't choose, at a time I
didn't choose, to be part of something bigger that I do choose." I purposefully position
myself against the flow of the rest of culture. Every week I
can think of that would be more fun, more interesting and more entertaining than a church service. On
any given Sunday I would rather be golfing, playing squash, hanging out with my
wife and kids or sleeping. This habit reminds me that I am not a victim of my
wants. In a culture that tries to cater to my every whim, the fact that I
choose to inconvenience myself to go to church forms me and reminds me that life
is not all for me or about me or up to me. I need that.
It’s a habit of rhythm. More and more I am realizing that life
needs a beat. My lifesong needs a good
groove. I need to give and I need to receive. I need solitude and community. I
need intellect and emotion. I need work
and rest. I need to lament and to celebrate.
Fast and efficient is so embedded in this culture that I need somewhere to slow
down and receive – whether it feels or looks effective or not. Even God took a day off. Church
attendance isn’t the same thing as a Sabbath, but it does change up the rhythm of
my week and that makes my lifesong all the more interesting to sing and to listen
to.
It’s a habit of the unusual. Church services are strange and
that’s the way that they should be. Sometimes we forget how unusual it is to
sing with other people, to read and listen to old literature, to willingly give
money away, and to participate in ancient rituals. Where else in culture do we
do these things? The strange rituals in an assembly tie me to history and deep symbolism.
I need to do things that I may or may not feel like doing in order to bond myself
to the meaning they represent. Besides, sometimes I just like doing things that
are strange – it makes me feel special.
It’s a habit of attending. There is value in just showing up and waiting.
There are things that can only be received by waiting – by being available and
open. By intentionally placing myself in a position so that I can hear what I need
to hear when it happens. For instance, all the sermons throughout the year are
not going to impact you equally. But the discipline attending puts you in a position to hear the handful that are what you need
to hear - and we never know which ones they are ahead of time. Most growth is
a result of discipline and often times the discipline of showing up blooms into
opportunities and learning that would never have occurred otherwise.
Part 2 tomorrow.
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