Can we talk about Sunday?  I am writing this entry on a Sunday afternoon after a marvelous Sunday morning.  We do a little differently here on Sunday than many contemporary churches.  One of those differences is that we still believe that Sunday doesn’t end right after the middle of the day.  We still have a full worship and teaching time on Sunday night.  We simply believe that the Lord’s Day is the Lord’s Day in its entirety.  It is not biblical truth that has led us to redefine the Lord’s Day in terms of what it is and what we do with it; it is our contemporary culture and our consumption with the need for leisure time that had led us to this redefinition.  So, one thing that we do differently is that we do have Sunday Night Church.  And people come.  Lots of people come.  They understand what the Lord’s Day is and when it begins and ends.  Another thing that we do with the Lord’s Day is that we treat the four fifth Sundays that come each year in a different way than we do the other Sundays.

We only have one morning service on Sunday morning and then on Sunday night we observe family night.  Family night is simply a time when we cease from all other activities that normally go on on Sunday night and gather as one large family.  We sing, we pray, we give praise to God and we eat; usually in that order.  It is a time to testify to the goodness and grace of God in our lives.  I am writing these words on a fifth Sunday anticipating our Family Night tonight.  We have just had a wonderful time in the morning with full house and full service followed by a wonderful meal.  But my point in all of these words until right now will be made right here:  we did not begin this morning until 9:45 with Sunday School and we were done with the morning service around 12:20.  Earlier this morning as I had already completed at least a half days’ worth of work before 9:45 rolled around I began to ponder what people must be thinking when they think that because they came to Sunday School and then endured a worship service that went past twelve that they must have delighted God on His Day.  Some would think that they have demonstrated their devotion to God through such an investment of their lives.  Some are sure that it is a sign of their love for God and their desire to deliver Him praise.  Come now!  How could we wade around in such shallow water and think we are swimming?  How could we mount such a mole hill and consider it a mountain?  Seriously?

God gave us one whole twenty four hour day in seven for the purpose of rest from ordinary labor and for the worship of His great Name.  It is to be set aside in its entirety for “religious exercises” and I mean that phrase in the Puritan sense of the practice of what is proper to give good and right praise to God.  The time in which we are to engage in religious exercises is the entirety of the day.  It would look something like this:  the early morning would be spent in private and family prayer in preparation for the public worship of God.  The bulk of the morning would be spent in public worship followed by a fellowship with food in which the conversation would be salted by reflections on how to live out the preached word which would then be followed by a time of rest and then the Lord’s Day would end with the public worship of God followed by retirement to our homes where we would gather the family to reflect on the day and give thanks and praise to God for the good and right gift of this day.  How does that sound to you?  Be honest now.  You see, I believe how we see the Lord’s Day and what we do with it is very good barometer of the true marrow in the bones of who we really are. I hope our Sundays here say that we love God, His glory and His Word more than we love anything else.  And I hope that we say that we are glad to gather to give glory to His Name, even saying that we do not do it for long enough time in the morning and the evening.  What a day Sunday is!  What does your Sunday say?

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