Five Reasons We Don’t Have Special Services
This article is going to have to start with a disclaimer. Our church does meet for Christmas Eve, Good Friday, and Easter. Not only do we meet on these days, but we prepare for these days weeks in advance. We observe Advent so that our hearts are prepared for the wonder of celebrating Christ’s coming to us. Likewise, we begin preparing our hearts for worship on Easter Sunday weeks in advance. That these holidays are firmly rooted in the celebration of the person and plan of God is what makes them exceptions.
What we aren’t doing is setting apart Sundays for special worship services recognizing holidays such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or governmental holidays such as Canada Day. Likewise, we are not giving the body of the service to missionaries and para-church groups. Why? I understand that this can be an upsetting and divisive topic, so I ask that you graciously consider my position. Here are five convictions that lead us to this conclusion.
We get one shot.
There was a time, and to be sure there are still churches who meet this way, when each week the local body of Christ would gather on three separate occasions. Today, many churches have reduced these meetings by sixty-six percent. With two-thirds of our corporate meetings gone, we are left to ask difficult questions about what we do in our one remaining worship service. I would never presume that previous generations were flippant about Sunday morning worship, but it seems to me that this regular gathering of the church is made all the more precious when it is the only time in the week that the church will gather.
We still only get one shot.
Every Sunday we have a visitor of one sort or another. Our goal is not to rearrange everything we do for the comfort and pleasure of a visitor. That would be going too far. On the other hand, it would be too much for us to ignore that there are those meeting with us that have overcome obstacles of their own heart to cross the threshold and be in church. Far be it from us to allow that person to come and go without them being confronted with the our common need to turn from self and seek the truth of God.
We gather to Worship.
Ligon Duncan describes a Sunday worship gathering like this, “It is a family meeting with God; it is the covenant community engaging with God, gathering with his people to seek the face of God to glorify and enjoy him, to hear his Word, to revel in the glory of union and communion with him, to respond to his Word, to render praise back to him, to give unto him the glory due his name.”
John Piper is a little more direct when he says, “They [worship services] are about ‘going hard after God.’”
With both of these definitions in mind we want to be a localized family of God going hard in the pursuit of bringing glory and honour to the one who has created us, saves us, and sustains us.
Our Sunday morning services are worship services. They are the time we set aside each week to gather as a local body of Christ for the worship of our God. In this time, we want to do a variety of things. We sing, we pray, we open the Word; and we do all of this with in worship of God.
We gather for the giver not the gift.
A lot of people are going to see this as a fine line. I get that. Fine line or not, it is a line that we have to walk and we walk it carefully. The worship that is due to God is not due to him because of the wonderful gifts he has given us. He is worthy of our worship simply because he is.
In Romans, we see that some have their hearts turned away from God because they have come to worship the creature over the creator. The land we live in, loved ones in our lives, and opportunities to partner with others in God’s work are beautiful gifts that we are very grateful for, but we must differentiate between gratitude and worship. As we have already said, we are gathered for worship. Romans one is a warning for the church to be diligent in guarding the worship of our hearts. We do this by acknowledging special occasions and missions work during the Community Life portion of our service before the Call to Worship in prayer. Once our reports of thanks are given, we turn our eyes to the giver and not the gift.
It is My Pastoral Obligation
All arguments made, there will be some who respond by saying that this is the opinion of one pastor. Allow me to agree. Then, allow me to encourage you to give that thought more weight than you might have previously intended. 1 Peter 5 tells us that Pastors/Elders are temporary shepherds keeping watch over the flock of Christ until he returns. James 3 tells us that teachers will be judged more harshly than others. I take these charges very seriously. They drive me to consider the things we will and will not do in our gatherings with deep convictions formed by prayer and meditation on the Word. I am not am anti-patriot, I am not anti-family, I am not anti-missions. These celebrations have a special place in my heart and I believe them to be reasons for us to celebrate. But when we gather to worship, we will set the gift aside and go hard after the giver.
