I suffer from the curse of a chronic questioning and argumentative mind. Most of the arguments are with myself. It is as if I have never quite outgrown the annoying childlike habit of repeating the question “…but why” It as if I never learned to grow up, to accept that it is probably just the way it is and to move on. Some questions have niggled for years. One of these is “Why do I go to church twice on a Sunday?” The thing is, so many of my Christians friends don’t and many churches will only have one service on a Sunday. So why do we have one and why do I go twice? Is it a sign of being more holy and being a bit better than the rest? Is it just an anachronistic tradition? Is it because I fear something bad will happen if I don’t? It is, of course, none of these but a puzzle all the same. It is certainly a puzzle to non-believing friends who understand that we have this thing about going to church, but are bewildered when we speak of going twice. “Why do you need to?” “Surely, whatever you do at church, once is enough? The very framing of the question, however, misses the point. It is not about “needing to” and not about “doing enough” but I could never give a satisfactory answer to my non-believing friends or to myself. The question lay there unresolved for quite some time. Until, that was, a friend explained it to me in a way that finally did made sense. As is so often the case the light came via an illustration, in a picture. It was a bookend.
First of all you have to understand that the church has always been part of my life. Not just a part but the most significant part of it. It is family. Blood is thicker than water but this bond is thicker. So going to church has always been my habit. Not that the church is a place, it is people, but people come together in a place and unless you are a king or celebrity, people don’t generally congregate around you. You have to go to them. So the term “Going to church” is a valid one and a vital part of life for anyone who is a follower of Jesus. Like family, however, it is not always sweetness and light, its history has not always been something to be proud of, its people sometimes drive you crazy and more than often you stretch their patience to the limit. We blow up, fall out, walk out and separate but one thing remains a constant, we are part of God’s family and he won’t change that. It is not a right but a gift. Going to church is not a duty but a privilege.
At St Peter’s we have two services on a Sunday: a morning and an evening service. This is not for convenience but deliberately as part of tradition going back many years. It is not a rule thing. It is not a commandment. You would be hard pressed to find something in the Bible that lays down that law. But it comes, I believe, from how we view the day itself. For followers of Jesus, Sunday is the “Lord’s Day”. It belongs to Him. It is not our day. In one sense every day is His day but Sunday is especially for Him and that is where the evening service comes into its own. It is a bookend to that day and helps us see this special day as His. And so the morning and evening services provide us with helpful bookends to the Lord’s Day.
Not long after we came to St Peter’s, we were on a weekend away with Friends International, up in the highlands, cooking for 70 plus students and engaging in activities. It was full on and when we returned, in the early evening, we were exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally with the stress of logistics, the heat of the kitchen, the many conversations with so many people from so many parts of the world. We arrived back about the time of the evening service. Now the voice of common sense was saying “Relax, unwind, sit down, read a book, watch a film, have a bath, go to bed, the last thing you need is another service”, But instead we went to church and joined our church family in worship, praying, reading, sharing and listening to God’s voice. Entering the building late we were met with the sound of singing, of many voices old and young, high and deep, strong and lyrical, together and in harmony, led sensitively by the band, coming from the heart, rising to the roof and way beyond. It would be very hard to begin to describe the all-embracing sense of wholeness, healing, invigoration, revitalisation and excitement that overwhelmed us as we joined the people in this special time, this bookend to the Lord’s Day. The tiredness evaporated and I remember thinking then, there was nowhere else in the whole earth I would rather be.
Crawford