Life was so much simpler back in the days when I had no choice as a child and had to follow my parents to church on Sunday morning. Sunday school was fun at times but for the most part I was just fiddling, daydreaming and finding ways to entertain myself until the adult service finished and we would go have lunch at the shopping centre (after lunch I would usually go to my friend's place for the rest of the afternoon and played games; good times).
As a teenager I took on the faith more seriously and personally, and attended both youth fellowship and adult service by choice. I started paying attention and taking advantage of Sunday services to learn more about God and the Bible. However, a few years of this I began to feel the content of the sermons that was being taught seemed a bit shallow and began to find alternate motivation to continue attending church, and this resulted in the form of ministry. Now however I am not driven to attend church on Sundays at all.
A large population of people who are Christians do not regularly attend a church. Sometimes regular church attendees, even pastors, pass judgement on them or fear that they will backslide in their faith as a result. However, as my faith mature and my horizon gradually widened, I realised this isn't the case. There are many reasons people do not go to Sunday services other than not wanting to:
- work obligations - for financial or professional reasons, many people are forced to work on Sundays, such as students making their own living while studying, Doctors and Nurses who have to attend the hospitals, taxi and bus drivers who have to continue to provide public transport etc.
- health and personal problems - someone might have a chronic ailment that prevents them from physically going to the service. Or, there is someone at church they have an issue with and don't want to face them. They may want to go to church but to avoid conflict and causing problems they just don't attend to be safe.
- on-line sermons - some may feel that their local church's Sunday sermons are not deep enough or the topics are irrelevant to them, so they opt to listen to on-line sermons provided by other churches that may cater for their needs.
For argument sake, lets exclude these groups of people for now and just concentrate on the Christians who do no attend church out of choice.
Some churches believe that Christian who don't attend church are not 'as christian' as those who do. This internal attitude results in an expectation from non-Christians, who would also criticise when they see a Christian not attend church, even comparing it to them leaving the faith.
I personally don't think this should be the case. I do see a lot of value in attending services, the primary three drivers being fellowship, message and worship. However at times the corporate nature of a church leads to a very systematic delivery of the entire service, which becomes more like attending a concert + seminar than coming back together in fellowship. Even the sermon can feel very formal: it is either simplified to be accessible to newer and non-Christians, or is excited to promote an idea/message to the audience.
Problem two. I always feel that when the pastor is talking about 'us' it never included me. That's how it was like for me since moving to another city for university studies. Now that I am attending a church as an adult and did not grow up with my friends in that church, I always feel like a visitor. People greet me like a visitor, I participate in their activities/camps like a visitor, and I meet other 'visitors' also attending the church and our friendships are formed outside of the church, and I would only attend church activities if those people were also going.
Problem two. I always feel that when the pastor is talking about 'us' it never included me. That's how it was like for me since moving to another city for university studies. Now that I am attending a church as an adult and did not grow up with my friends in that church, I always feel like a visitor. People greet me like a visitor, I participate in their activities/camps like a visitor, and I meet other 'visitors' also attending the church and our friendships are formed outside of the church, and I would only attend church activities if those people were also going.
This leads to the next problem that plagues the Christian community is divisions and clicks. Perhaps this problem was most apparent to me when I began attending churches I did not grow up in. In my home church, I was a part of the 'click', and so everything social and church-related I was automatically included. In my church in Adelaide, I felt like I must receive an invitation to actually join in. In fact, after I was lukewarm in attendance to a few of the church's activities due to my busy study schedule. I then noticed they stopped asking and didn't put in any further effort to include me in their social circles. I guess in retrospect I didn't do that either when new kids came into Sunday school in my home church; I just stuck with my friends and went to their house after lunch.
But as adults and (hopefully) mature brothers and sisters in Christ, I would have expected more effort to encourage me to be a member of their church, and this is where I realised that I was going to Church on Sunday mostly hoping for fellowship.
Conducting worship service on Sunday was fine but to me worship is more an attitude than a program of hymns and prayers, so it wasn't a great deal to have music before the message even though I loved it. Also the messages (sermons) themselves, as mentioned before, are catered to the target groups I am not a part of: the non-Christians, the new believers and the people within the church clicks. So the only thing I really was hoping for was fellowship, which because of the click problem I didn't feel was genuine to me for the most part. It was mostly friendliness and polite "how was your week" questions that wouldn't be followed up until next Sunday, if at all. If they have to ask 'how was your week' it means they don't know.
Conducting worship service on Sunday was fine but to me worship is more an attitude than a program of hymns and prayers, so it wasn't a great deal to have music before the message even though I loved it. Also the messages (sermons) themselves, as mentioned before, are catered to the target groups I am not a part of: the non-Christians, the new believers and the people within the church clicks. So the only thing I really was hoping for was fellowship, which because of the click problem I didn't feel was genuine to me for the most part. It was mostly friendliness and polite "how was your week" questions that wouldn't be followed up until next Sunday, if at all. If they have to ask 'how was your week' it means they don't know.
Saying this, there were lots of very caring people at church who did try to include me and keep me accountable, but they were probably too stretched in their role to communicate with everyone, so they really couldn't offer the daily fellowship/friendship I needed at the time. Also many these people were aunties and uncles, where as a young adult I was more looking for other young adults who can relate to me better, but again the young adults 'belonging to' the church generally stuck with themselves.
So as a result of all of these things, I am no longer inclined to attend church, and am planning to stop attending church as an obligation. I tried to give myself a reason to keep going before as I was serving in the music team but that became the only reason, which I thought was not the best attitude if Sunday is meant to be worship to God. I mean, who am I trying to please? God or The Church?
The hardest bit now is how to respond to people at church who might ask me why they haven't seen me for weeks/months. What should I say? Do I tell them all those thoughts above? Do I give other excuses? I find it ironic that the only time churches make an effort to follow up is when I'm no longer there, and then there is this attitude that 'as long as you are attending another good church it is okay'. So does that mean not attending church is wrong?
God wrote into the Old Testament that we are to "keep the Sabbath Day holy" as one of 10 commandments. Then Jesus came along in the New Testament and summarised these 10 into 2 laws: love God and love your neighbour. Does going to church equal to loving God? Does not attending church equals not loving God? I am inclined to reply no to both questions. Many people, even non-Christians, go to Church on Sundays, but like the video above sings, them going to church doesn't mean their heart or mind is there, or that their worship/prayers are directed to God. Going to church makes you a Christian as much as sitting inside a car makes you a driver.
Equally, not attending church on Sundays doesn't make one a God-ignoring, backsliding Christian. I cannot speak for everyone, but at least for myself, these are some of the benefits I see in not attending church:
- Church service can be tiring. 30-45 minutes of standing up and singing, respectfully listening to a 1-2 hour sermon that may not be relevant or I may not agree with, and then the social obligation afterwards to mingle and catch up with people I don't see the other 6 days of the week. God was resting on the 7th day, which we call Sunday, and he asked us to observe this date, doesn't it mean we are also called to rest with him? It should be a day of the week to enjoy His creation rather than labouring in it.
I think doing what I enjoy on Sunday is not out of the question. Since God created all things, and He created me to enjoy aspects of His creation more, is it such a sin to actually enjoy it (with exception of the obvious things)? And is it sinful to do it on the Sabbath? I mean, if we interpret observing the Sabbath in any other way, we should be doing nothing, right? And besides, even those who do attend church regularly goes and does whatever they want after service. So attending church doesn't equal observing the Sabbath, then there shouldn't be any legal issues with not attending church.
- Church service can be 'too much' if we are also attending a bible study cell group and other fellowships (such as one I attended during my undergraduate years). In fact, some times attending my cell group or fellowship group it feels more like observing the Sabbath than the actual Sunday, which seems to be an arbitrary date decided by some church authority as the definition of Sabbath (loosely based on the 7th day in the account of Creation).
Obviously to compensate for this loss of fellowship and opportunity to learn through the message I should find them through some alternative avenue. I don't do much in terms of on-line sermons, but I find reading the bible pair-matched with commentaries/forums/discussions on matters associated with those passages/books is a fairly healthy way to go. We learn from each other, as how the Apostles did after the ascension of Jesus. They also kept each other accountable and corrected, rebuked and encouraged. I think that's ultimately what the church was for: accountability and learning from each other.
Maybe it is because I have been attending churches that I don't 'belong' to, which made me miss out on finding personal fellowship and mutual growth as I used to in my home church, but I believe that a Church without walls is more powerful. We can observe the Sabbath on Sundays, but I don't think there should be a one-way-fits-all approach on how we observe it.
