I have previously suggested that one of the best things a pastor could do for their church is cancel all church services. The reason would not be to shut the church down, but liberate the church to actually be the church in the community. People are so busy attending church, they don’t have time to be the church. So cancelling the services would free up their time.
But it is easy to predict what would happen if your church did this. Most of the members would go down the street to another church. And then the pastor would get fired by the few who remained.
So before canceling everything all at once, some small steps toward freedom might be necessary. For example, a church could cancel one Sunday service per month. And initially, to really surrender control and give the people freedom, nothing should be scheduled to replace the canceled service. On these Sundays, the people are simply given permission to not attend church. The pastor could tell the people that they are being given the Sunday off. They can sleep in, go golfing, or have an enjoyable morning with their family.
When that Sunday comes, the church doors should remain locked and a sign can be posted which says, “Church service cancelled today. Enjoy your day and see you next week!” Later, if the leaders feel they must plan something for the people do, they must first ask themselves if they are having control issues.
Then, once they are assured they are not, they should take a deep breath, and schedule something unchurchy. Tell the people that there are no requirements, but if they want to join you at the beach next Sunday, they are welcome. Or fishing on the lake. Or watching football. Or whatever. Just don t do anything with the Bible, singing, sermons, and prayer. Whatever you do, don t take attendance or an offering.
Cancelling a church service, of course, is done with purpose. It is to show the people that attending church is not what church is really about. Cancelling a service or two per month provides the church the opportunity to put the service back in church service. I’ll post about this later.
What do you think? Is this doable? What would happen if your church tried something like this?
I love it!Keep it coming Jeremy.Having followed Messiah since 16 this is the revolution that we are waiting for!
Mandy,
Sorry about not responding on Facebook today. I heard some “ding” but didn’t know what it was (I was on another webpage), and when I started to close out windows about 20 minutes later, I saw that you had PM’d me, but I had to leave right then and didn’t have time to chat. Sorry ’bout that.
its amazing you guys read a few books grow your hair long and say you have no answers but you are sure that whats being done now is wrong check the word their are 6 days a week the church “can be the church’I MISS THE OLD PRE SEMINARY jeremy i know one day he will return he Loves the Savior to much not to
Robert,
You use to get my newsletter, right? Apparently you must have started getting it before I went to Seminary. Thanks for sticking around this long…
I do understand your feelings about my changes. I sometimes sit back a little dazed, and wonder what has happened to me too.
But a few things I know, the primary book I still read and think about is the Bible, and I love the Savior now more than ever. And those two things have led me down the path I’m on to actively love and serve other people.
I do understand that there are six other days for the church to be the church. But the tragic reality is that most Christians do not use the six other days for that purpose. So I’m trying to propose suggestions for what pastors and elders can do to lead the people under their care into loving service of other people. My next post on this subject will hopefully make that clear.
No problem Jeremy.Chat soon.
This is the most unbiblical and ungodly suggestion I have ever heard. You should “be the church” in your community during the whole week, but church on Sunday in not about reaching the community (evangelism) but is about worshipping God. Have you missed the most important point of the Bible, i.e. your personal salvation relationship with God? You must develop this in worship, prayer, praise, thanksgiving all in the fellowship of the brethren in the local church. This is the example of the New Testament. They met on Sunday to worship God and do God’s work, which is receiving the unbelieving and preaching the gospel to them, receiving the young believer and educating them to be mature, and receiving the adult Christians to encourage them and bear their burdens with them. Cancel church? This is just satanic. You redefine church to something other than the NT, then you criticize that (which is to be rightly criticized), and then you offer nothing in its place? Evangelism cannot take the place of worship and all the other activities that are concentrated in the local church. You are just so far off from the biblical norm that it is amazing that you even call yourself “Christians.” You can fabricate new stuff all day long, but go back to the Bible and see what it says and the example it sets. The centerpiece of Christianity in the New Testament was the local assembly every Sunday.
David,
Thank you for your comment. I hope you are not suggesting that I and others who believe and practice following Jesus this way (1) do not know the Bible and (2) are not actually followers of Jesus but Satan.
As a missionary, you must know that the church functions in various ways at various times and in various places. Are you so ready to condemn our Chinese brothers and sisters who follow Jesus in much the same way as I have described above?
… mmm… I fear that “the biblical norm” is somewhat something like “we’ve always do it so it must be the biblical truth”
“The centerpiece of Christianity in the New Testament was the local assembly every Sunday.” …. yes ? now, how do we prove it ? one verse in Acts saying “the first day of the week” is the only biblical ground to our traditionnal sunday gathering?
“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”
why not: “and thuesday night, when the disciples came together to eat pizza, Paul preached unto them, ready to take a bus the morning after; and continued his speech until midnight.” ?
i’m not a scholar/exegete so I don’t know if my “translation” is correct.
“Constantinianism is a hard habit to break.” – Stanley Hauerwas
So true, so true…
I really love this idea – and had suggested at the church where I used to be a leader. It doesn’t matter how many time we tell people to be the church, as long as they are still in that mindset and can come to a service on Sunday morning. It didn’t go over too well. We never canceled a service.
Great thoughts man!
Jason,
You suggested this in the church you used to lead? Did they do it? I have suggested it previously too, but couldn’t get the elders to go along with it. So I did it for a Bible study and prayer meeting every now and then. They got a little upset about that, but I didn’t get fired over it.
If you did it in your church, I would love to hear about it!
We did something like this in October ’10. We leveraged the cancellation of our services to go out into our communities in the Baltimore area and lavish people with the love of Jesus. Our motto was “Don’t Go to Church, Be the Church.”
It was awesome. We cancelled all four services and had close to 2000 people serving in various venues. Oh, and we didn’t take an offering :).
Adam,
That is fantastic! Was the response from the congregation positive? Do you think you will do it again? What is the name of the church?
Hey Jeremy,
It was overwhelmingly positive. It was an awesome, awesome time. The name of the church is LifePoint, located in Reisterstown MD. http://lifepointchurch.us/
There is talk about doing it again and I hope we do.
That’s great. Keep me informed if you do it again.
I see you are the pastor of small groups there. Out of curiosity, how do your small groups function in the church? If you have a blog post or website about this, just direct me to it.
Are they Bible studies and fellowship groups? Missional communities? Support groups? All of the above?
Edit: I think I found it: http://lpclifesupport.wordpress.com/
From what I’ve read so far, I really like how you have set up small groups.
I think it’s doable. Church is just a time of worship and fellowship with others. I believe that just as long as you commit the time to worshiping him, nothing is wrong. I like the idea of creating a bbq or sunday football day at a member’s house. Know of any churches that tried this out?
Oh yes. There are many churches doing this all over the country.
Here are just two examples:
http://www.alanknox.net/2011/04/this-church-is-meeting-for-a-real-church-service/
https://redeeminggod.com/put-service-back-in-the-church-service/
I’m ok with closing down church on a Sunday to be the church collectively. I’m not ok with closing down church so members can have family time or rest. In this culture, it seems the church and a relationship with God are lacking. We put football games, practices, etc. before the church during the week so of course having a Sunday off would be nice. But what if we put the church first throughout the week, came to worship on Sunday and to be fed and encouraged to go be the church for the next week.
If we closed our church down for a Sunday our members would not go to another church. They wouldn’t go to church at all.
That’s because we can’t really “go to church.” Church is not something or some place you can go to. Maybe cancelling the church service would help people understand what the church really is, and how they can be the church at the football game, the practice, and with their family at home.
If we did it? It’s being done. I think it’s catching on with newer church plants. As far as old frozen chosen churches forget about it. I love this. We really need to break down the paradigm of how we “do church”.
Yes, I know it is being done in some places, and that really excites me.
Are you part of one of these groups?
I agree with the concept of cancelling church services once a month or so. For those truly committed to serving God it would be great. Just to stay in and relax, enjoy family time, do something enjoyable and relaxing would be great. Unfortunately I think the majority of church goes would get upset and go looking for a new church. Most people feel the obligation to ‘be in church’ on Sunday and most feel they are fulfilling their Christian duty by doing so. It’s sad that a lot of people feel church is a place to go, when Church is actually the people themselves. We have the Spirit of God living within us and it is a daily way of life, not just on Sunday.
But this contradicts what God says.
“Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves, as is a custom to some.” [Hebrews 10:25]
Why do you encourage people to disobey the Holy Spirit? Have you never heard, or do you forget, that “church” is a word meaning “assembly”? Don’t you know that if we are “not assembling,” then we are “not church”?
But some say there is only one verse about the holy assembly on the day of the holy resurrection! Even if we were to suppose this is true, which it is not, wouldn’t it be wiser to follow one word from God rather than the strongest passion of our own gut?
Let us, contrary to such passion, follow the Blessed Apostle John. For when he was exiled to Patmos because he testified about Jesus, even then – seemingly by himself – he did not forsake the apostolic custom of assembling in the Holy Spirit on the Lord’s Day. And it was precisely at that time, on Sunday, when the great revelation of Jesus Christ was granted to him. He himself wrote an account of this mystery,and we retain it to this day. We even call it a holy book and God’s Word.
Don’t you yet perceive that the Holy Assembly on the Lord’s Day was and is and is to be the Revelation of Jesus to the world? Do you forget that a master held a great feast and invited many to come and eat with him? Don’t you know that some said they had matters of this life instead: football, the beach, or just enjoying a private day? And can’t you perceive this is condemned by the God in His Gospel?
Let us not forsake assembling together on the Day of the Resurrection to participate in the Feast of the New Testament! For this is a holy practice taught to us by the Apostles of our God and Savior. Furthermore, the “churching” together on Sunday is how we gained our name: Church. We are not the Church if we do not church.
Let us not be so wise in our own eyes that we destroy paradigms established by God Himself for our salvation. Let us humble ourselves, rather, under the Right Hand of God. For even if someone asserts that it’s only one verse and also foolish, then the foolishness of God is still wiser than man…And it is better to be a doorkeeper in the House of my God than to dwell in tents with football and private luxury.
So let us not forsake to assemble as a community for the Communion of Salvation, seeing as those who adopt a custom of not assembling are condemned by the Holy Spirit who gives us life.
Is the assembly in pews on a Sunday morning at a particular building with the word “Church” on the wall really what the author of Hebrews had in mind when he wrote that text? Are there not many other ways to assemble? Of course there are!
Let us not be so wise in our own eyes that we destroy paradigms established by God Himself for our salvation. Let us humble ourselves and recognize that there are many valuable and helpful and relational ways for believers to gather together and to assemble that do not look at all like what many people think of as “church.”
Also, I have written some about Hebrews 10:25 here.
Cancelling church services doesn’t really help if you are in a church that believes that we receive God’s Means of Grace in the Divine Service every week, ie. traditional Lutheran congregations with Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, Confession and Absolution – see http://bookofconcord.org