Somebody said the other day that most people only come to church to sit near electric sockets, I am tempted to believe him, and argue that there are even more reasons why many Ugandans show up on Sundays anyway, if at all.
Unlike our Parents’ days, (not that they were any better) gathering on Sundays is underrated today, millennials alone, with myriads of options from Netflix and Nintendo, have vast alternatives to stay away from congregations. We will walk through the auditorium because of every other reason other than the biblical ones, among which may include “church will be the best for us to link up before the afternoon plot.”
That stated, albeit a little hyper-dramatically, lone ranger-Christianity should be no option for believers, millennial or not.
Seeing that the entire New Testament was written to gathered believers in locations, our Sunday gathering should have roots deeper than prayer requests, we gather on the first day of the week to primarily remind ourselves of a risen Lord and our incorporation into a saved people.
We kick radical post-modern individualism in the teeth by displaying to the world around us how a people so different, so weird, selfish, narcissistic, yet redeemed, can gather to both display and worship a sovereign God who transferred them from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light.
As a result, our bedside Bible reading and private prayer begin to glitter. Because when we “lock the door behind us”(Matt 6:6)” to pray like our master commanded, we are not only seeking a “nice week ahead,” we are saying with the saints we met recently – “your kingdom come”(Matt 6:9) and reminding ourselves of a cosmic battle in which we are stronger together and weak as loners. Our pews become frontlines as we affirm that we would be vanquished if we dared engage the thousand-year-old “prowling lion” as lone rangers.
Like the author of Hebrews 3:13 put it, we “encourage each other as long as it is called today” for a reason – “…so that no one may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Heb 3:13)” Because, hardening and deceit, as Paul shows, thrive among the isolated.
We “do not give up the habit of meeting as the day of the Lord approaches (Heb 10:25)” because we know the temptation to give up is there, and it will be costly on the day of the Lord.
So we keep on, church people may turn us off, greeting time may threaten our melancholy, couch conversations and talk shows may excite more than pulpit declarations, but we remember, the call to worship is not a call about us, it’s a call of a sovereign God who has redeemed his people, given them his word and commanded them to regularly gather at his embassy and put, his preferences on display, not ours.
I hope these are the reasons we are likely to see you at Church next Sunday or are they?
