I have been a member of several congregations in my lifetime and two issues that always seem to be debated are "What time should worship start on Sunday morning?" and “How long should we worship?” I believe these are valid questions, but the attitudes behind the question can become negative and selfish."What time should worship start on Sunday morning?"
This question can be answered in so many ways depending on who you are talking to. It really does not make a difference as long as a godly attitude is behind your decision. From my experience, congregations have later worship times on Sunday morning because it is hard for people to get up early. I do understand that reasoning, but I have never been able to understand why Monday through Friday people can get up early for their job, Black Friday, school, exercise, etc. without complaint, but then when Sunday morning worship comes around have a problem with getting up to worship before 10 a.m. I am not advocating for having a 7:00 a.m. service, but am making the point that our priorities can really be unhealthy at times.
“How long should we worship?”
As a minister I cringe each time I hear this question. I am not sure why it bothers me so much, but don’t understand why we are so adamant in having to “cap” how long we should spend time in worship to God.
I have been told by many people that the culture we live in is not conducive to worship being more than an hour. I am not sure where their beliefs on this come from. I do know, however, that when people feel that something is important they will spend time doing it.
How many of you sat through the Lord of the Rings trilogy? How many of you have attended a 2-3 hour graduation just to hear the name of your loved one called? How much more important is it then to spend some time worshipping our creator?
I believe the biggest issue lies in a heart problem. There can be an attitude that when we come to worship everything must fit what is best for me. It has to be my songs, my style of worship, my length of sermon, my favorite sermon topic, and done in less than an hour so that I can get home. I know this is a very cynical, but you have heard the excuses before just like I have.
When we truly have a heart for God then we lose the right to demand what is the most convenient for our particular situation. We will be more concerned about glorifying God regardless of what time of day that it is. I think He deserves it too. God has never put a “cap” on our blessings or only been available to us when it suited Him. Why do we feel we have the right to respond to Him that way?
So what do you think? Am I crazy (Probably a bad question) or am I just missing something here?
3 comments:
This is my first visit to your blog, and I am convicted already.
I think that we forget that God rested, and there should be one day that we devote to HIM. We view Saturday as our "day off" and Sunday worship as work, or a presentation.
We are far too busy, and you are precisely right about forms of entertainment taking longer and holding our attention. God deserves far more from us.
I can't help but feel sad that we ask the question "How long?" so often. Wish the question we asked more often was, "When do we GET to worship God?" If we're loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, strength...we can hardly wait to have the chance to worship.
And the privilege of being in His presence changes us every time.
I followed Chelf here :-) I totally agree! And what's worse when some new alternantive is brought up- people are too set in their ways to see opportunity to spend more and/or better time with our Lord!
Post a Comment