About two years ago, I shared with my church during huddle time that, as important as the Sunday morning experience is in the life of a church, these two hours on a Sunday morning can’t be the whole thing.  

I see now, looking back, that this wrestling has been growing for a while.  This discontent with how church looks in America has been steeping in my soul and slowly gaining more clarity.  What I was expressing two years ago has only been made clearer in the months since:  the other 6 ½ days of the week are as important as those 2 hours that we meet on a Sunday morning.  

We spend a ton of resources: time, money, energy--inviting our church body and our community to take part in our “Sunday morning experience”...and then we leave and go back to our normal non-sacred lives.  The rest of the week (if you’re part of a church volunteer team or staff) is often focused on reflection of that two hours--or preparation for the two hours that are coming again in 6 days.  

This feels backwards to me! I haven’t quite figured out what exactly what that Sunday morning should be--certainly worship, reading the Bible together, caring for each other, YES.  But when we put all of our eggs in this one basket, we have perverted what the life of the Church was meant to be.  By putting so much of our time and resources into this one experience--we simultaneously create unrealistic expectations for what this Sunday morning service should be, as well as train our congregants to sit back and enjoy the service, while the pastor does the actual work of engaging those we bring.  

The reality is, in the life of a follower of Jesus--the entire week is sacred. Everything we do--every interaction we have with a neighbor, every moment we are at work, every evening together with our family--these are moments in which God is present and we have real opportunities to demonstrate (and experience!) the beauty and power of the Kingdom.  

Many of us are struggling in this space of not having a home church, but desperately longing for that kind of community. So we’d love to hear from you: how do you acknowledge the beauty and sacredness of the entire week? What practices have you put into place to be reminded of God’s abiding Presence? How do you spend time in community with others outside of Sunday mornings?