Circuit Thoughts

When did church become a participation trophy? Do I have your attention? I suppose a better way to ask is; When did going to church stop being a privilege? It’s almost like we have forgotten how special church is supposed to be. We forget that in most of the world, and I mean MOST of the world, Psalm 122:1 means something.

The Psalmist writes, “I was GLAD when they said unto ME, let us go into the house of the Lord. (Emphasis mine.)’. Can you imagine a time when a house of worship would be closed to you or to others? Yet here in America, we have deemed it a right to go to worship. We have forgotten that we fought a war partially for the privilege to worship as we saw fit. We even wrote it into our constitution.

In the tradition I am currently in, the Methodist movement, (it was a movement for longer than it was an institutionalized denomination) required everyone who went to service on the Lord’s Day (Sunday), to attend a class meeting during the week. The class meeting was a combination covenant/accountability group filled with prayer and compassion. It was at the meeting you would receive a marker or “chit” to give to the parson at the Sunday service. This also allowed for the taking of Communion. The point was Sunday service was meant for those who were dedicated and focused on Christ. It wasn’t meant to keep people out. It was to allow those who truly wanted Christ to participate in a faith community.

Many churches of the day and even today have requirements to participate in their church. I think, (and I could be wrong) that the Main Line churches, to reach more people, have relaxed requirements for participation in worship. The result, churches who have requirements seem to be growing, while those that have none, are failing.

You see, the point of church is not to entertain, but to make Disciples. When the service must be focused on rudimentary teaching because there has been no required preparation, disciple making tends to be relaxed to the point of non-existence. The Psalmist even points out that going to worship was a privilege that was shared with only a few.

In America, we haven’t suffered for our faith in well over 200 or more years. We escaped persecution during the Puritan and Pilgrim migration of the 15 and 16 hundreds. We established churches that had requirements to seriously worship. But at the same time, we were outside reaching out to people to invite them to take part in those requirements. We sought converts, we didn’t wait around for them.

I wonder what would happen if the church I serve started requiring Bible study to participate in Sunday service? Would we see a decline? I don’t know.

What I do know is we need to get back to seeing church as a privilege and not a right.

See you in church.