Rethinking the Sabbath: Who Says Church Needs to Happen on Sundays?

(This is a guest blog post by Justin Wise who normally blogs at BeDeviant.com .)

I work in a church, but I like to sleep in on Sunday mornings. There, I said it. I feel much better, don’t you?

Here’s the thing, my wife and I have developed a relaxing little Sunday morning routine:

• Sleep-in until 9 or so.
• Wake up.
• I make my Gordan Ramsey-inspired scrambled eggs, some coffee, and toast.
• We eat.
• Then we relax for the rest of the morning: reading, emailing, and listening to Norah Jones.

It’s great. It really is. It’s probably the highlight of my week: A restful, relaxing, refreshing close/beginning (depending on which side of the coin you fall on) to the week.

Working at a church, you may be wondering how I can do this. Simple: we go to church on Thursday night. And most weeks we go on Saturday night, as well. Sunday mornings? Nope. Sorry. Not interested. I love how Kem Meyer put it on her blog: “We sleep in on Sundays, watch LOST on Wednesdays, and go to church on Saturdays.” Amen, sister!

“But Justin,” you say, “you work in a church. Aren’t you supposed to be at church on Sunday mornings?” And you would be correct if you approached church from a traditional perspective. For a lot of people, the traditional perspective of Sunday morning church works perfectly. If that’s you, awesome. Work it. Sunday-morning church has been baked into the proverbial American apple pie–it’s cultural tradition!

But, in case you haven’t noticed, our culture is changing.

As the Church moves into the 21st century, it seems that there is an ever-growing segment of people who are not fitting in to the “traditional perspective” of when to go to church. (Or even how to go to church for that matter! LifeChurch.tv is a great example of this–you can “go to church” online!) Life moves differently than it did 100, 50, 15, even five years ago. Why? Primarily because of the way in which we communicate with one another. The way we transfer information is changing, and most of our churches are set up to “transfer information” the same way they were back in the 1950’s.

Simply put, the internet is changing the game:

• It’s changing how we do commerce (you can buy your Uncle Larry’s birthday gift in your bathrobe at any time of the day or night from anywhere in the world … literally).
• It’s changing how we do education (I am within putting distance of receiving my Masters of Divinity from Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, MN … And I live in Des Moines, IA).
• It’s changing how we communicate with one another (Facebook, Twitter anyone?).

If it’s changing some of the basic building blocks of society, why should we think that religion, and thereby the Church, be any different? The interconnectedness of the world, via the internet, is allowing people to access what they want, when they want, where they want. We don’t need to wait to buy things, learn things, find things or watch things. Can the Church honestly say, with a straight face, that we are somehow immune to cultural leanings? If so, then we need to do away with every television, projector screen, telephone, computer and yes, every Bible that we have!

That’s why my church (and many others) decided to add a Saturday night service: To meet people where they were at. We were finding that people, for whatever reason, preferred to have their Sunday mornings free. Be it sleeping in, working, going to ball games, traveling … whatever. It was a small change, but now our Saturday night service is our second largest one (out of seven). That’s telling.

We, as a Church, can stubbornly dig our heels into the ground and cling to our religious traditions, or we can allow God’s Spirit to inspire us to adapt and grow along with the emerging culture around us. Never changing our message but changing the way we deliver the message.

So, how are you changing the way the message of Christ is told?