A Holy Day

(Photo cred: Grant Lubbers)

(Originally written for Douglas County Publishing: Pastor's Meditation April 25, 2017)

A little over a week ago, The Daily Republic published an article about declines in church attendance across America.  According to the article, this decline is evident here in South Dakota.  A Pew Research Center poll regarding South Dakotans and church attendance recently found that 36% attend services at least weekly, 37% go to worship services once or twice a month, and 27% rarely, if ever, attend. 

If we polled people around our region, I think those numbers might be accurate.  If you went to area pastors and asked us if we’ve had conversations about attendance either with leaders or members, I know many would affirm that we have.  Maybe not all, but most of our churches have seen drops in attendance in recent history.  Part of the reason is people have moved out of the area for higher education or have found work or started families elsewhere.  As the population of rural South Dakota declines, it makes sense that its churches will also see decline.

However, it’s also true that we see people leaving our churches and not going anywhere.  For some people, that means they don’t show up as much or at all compared to what they used to on Sunday mornings and evenings.  That’s what the polls focused on.  Yet declines in service attendance also likely correlates with declines in ministry involvement.  Sunday School, Bible studies, service groups, add ministries that are specific to your church to this list—have you seen changes to the number of people attending and being committed to them?  Have you heard or you yourself talked about the “good old days,” and why can’t we get back to them?  If you’re a member of a long-established church and consider yourself involved, you know what I’m talking about.

There are a couple things to consider here.  Some will say, “Do I have to attend church weekly or every other week or monthly to be considered a Christian?”  What that question is really getting at is this, am I only saved if I attend church a certain number of times a year?  We can scour the Bible, and we won’t find a specific number like that.  Another argument some people use is that because they come to church on Sunday and get fed then, that’s why they aren’t involved during the week or because they come during the week, they don’t come on Sunday.  With school, work, and other areas of life vying for our time, church activities that do not feel like a mandatory obligation often get the first cut.

Some of you reading this are weekly church service attenders.  Others of you declare to be Christians, and your church involvement is not primary on your Sunday to-do list.  Maybe some of you are Christmas/Easter attenders or not attending at all—you may or may not consider yourself a Christian.  If you have read this long, you’re probably wondering what this pastor’s opinion of church attendance is—and I want to give you that by pointing to the Bible. 

At creation, we are told that God rested on the seventh day, and he “blessed it and made it holy” (Genesis 2:3).  That seventh day would have been Saturday—and God made it holy.  That means he set it apart as special and unique in view and purpose among the other days.  However, it wasn’t just the day itself becoming special but special for the rest of creation.   When the Israelites came out of Egypt and to Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments, God proclaimed again that the Sabbath day—is “a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.”  Related to creation, we the image bearers of God are given an opportunity to work for six days but no work on the seventh.  Exodus 23:12 tells us that a key part of why God has done this is for refreshment.  Work is not all that people and animals were created to do; God does not desire for work to kill us. 

But that’s not the only reason for Sabbath.  In Exodus 31, the Lord says to Moses to pass on to the people, “You must observe my Sabbaths.  This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.”  What was Sabbath for?  Leviticus 23:3 calls it “a day of scared assembly.”  It’s not just about work, but God put this in place as a visible marker of his relationship with his people, that he is the one who makes us holy, who consecrates us.  The Israelites, theoretically, could have worked 365 days a year, but God says, I am giving you this day each week.  Observing it, by rest and assembly, will be a way of trusting what I have promised to do. 

As Christians, living after Jesus Christ’s first appearance, we have historically and traditionally taken up Sunday as our “holy” day.  It is the first day of the week, and it is the day of Jesus’ resurrection!  I’ve seen a few fellow pastors recently write how every Sunday is a “mini-Easter,” and that’s true—we celebrate what we know of God, a risen Lord who promises our forgiveness, our salvation, and our resurrection if we believe in him.  We can point out how throughout Acts, there were daily and weekly gatherings of believers.  We can point to Hebrews 10:25, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  We might assemble these thoughts, and proclaim that people should get their butts back to church on Sundays! 

As a pastor, I desire to see people being part of the church—the whole body of Christ, and also a local congregation.  It’s wonderful on Easter Sunday to see more people gathered together than usual, even for some of us a packed sanctuary!  My hope is that each one of those people would worship regularly with the body of Christ in a church.  Yet our basis for coming should not simply be because it’s our routine or because it’s on the calendar.  Jesus, a Sabbath-breaker in the eyes of the Jewish religious leaders, tells us, “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:12); and “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28).   

If you’re still looking for a number of times that I think you should be in a church service each month or year, I’m not going to give you one.  I hope you see it as important, even of primary importance that God has established congregations and given us opportunities to worship him and to be fed by him each week—even with the freedom that we have in our country! 

But what’s of even greater importance is that each of us understand that God is making us holy.  He is breaking the heart and the lifestyle of sin in those that truly believe.  He has named you as a son or a daughter of himself, and the goal of his work is that you would find the greatest amount of life and fruitfulness in following him, in obeying his commands, in enjoying him.  Worship services are services and settings where God can be worshiped for who he is—that’s unchanging, what he has done, and what he promises to do.  Have you been so changed by God that you will submit to him and say, “I trust you that I can rest, God.  I believe that by you alone, I can come into the sacred assembly.  Because of you, God, I want to join with believers.  I do want to be refreshed, and I want you to receive glory in the sacred assembly.”  If God has made so great an impact on your life through his grace, then I strongly and humbly encourage you to join regularly in worship at a local church.