Articles
Souls That Long for the Assembly
Remember when the subject of church attend-ance was easy? It used to be (in my experience) that almost every church met twice on Sunday and Wednesday night. Those who were strong attended all the services. A few people were sick, and a couple had legitimate job interfer-ences; they hated to miss, and sought to get out of it if at all possible. I know of some whose jobs were flexible enough to allow a lunch break to be taken during the worship assembly hour, and lunch was eaten in the car on the way to services. I remember as a teenager the example of those who would show up with twenty minutes left, still wearing their work attire. At the time, I thought it was silly to have driven all that way for just twenty minutes. But, now I appreciate the good example. They had finished their shift; they were tired, and yet they got there as soon as they could.
But now, as more and more churches transition to a single service, we are forced to face some questions about attendance. In addition, Covid adversely affected people’s thinking by convinc-ing them that an online presence is comparable to actually assembling with the saints—it’s not.
Have you or your family yet faced the challenge of deciding what to do about the assembly while vacationing out of town? How do you go about choosing a church with which to worship when there is more than one from which to choose? Should we drive a half an hour further in the morning to attend the church that doesn’t meet Sunday night so that we don’t have to go back in the evening? Does it make any difference whether the Sunday-morning only church we’re considering simply dropped their evening worship, or whether they incorporated it into a longer morning service? While we may be facing some new questions, we should be thankful for the opportunity this has presented to us to search our hearts and consider what really is driving our decisions about assembling worship.
This article is not intended to pass judgment on churches which have gone to a single Sunday service. My focus in writing is to acknowledge how this relatively new phenomenon may expose the fact that we have a checklist mentality of worship, or in other words, whether we have, as King David put it, souls that long for the assembly? When the Lord judges at the last day, I’m fairly certain that the books that will be opened are not books containing all the attendance sheets for each of the local churches. The Lord looks at the heart and He knows whether a man loves Him with all his heart. And now, by observing how we deal with questions pertaining to worship attendance, so can we.
In the eighty-fourth Psalm, David said: “How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (v. 2—NKJV)
What we see from the example of the apostle Paul is that he loved the brethren and he made assembling with them a priority. When he passed through various regions, he would seek to find any local disci-ples—look these verses up! (Acts 19:1; 21:4, 7-8; 28:14). Imagine what comfort meeting with the saints brought to this man, a man who is be-ing warned at every turn that his journey to Jerusalem will end in chains. Is there anyone whose impression of Paul is that he would have been a bare-minimum attendee looking for the church that offered the minimum number of worship hours possible?
Of course, the immediate response given is: “Where does Scripture ever command that it has to be two separate assemblies? Obviously, there is no command pertaining to the frequency of our assemblies, except to say that it was done every first day of the week. It should be noted that Acts 2:46 shows disciples continuing “day by day” in the temple endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. I imagine that even with the twice on Sunday / once on Wednesday that we are already meeting less than first century Christians did. It should also be noted that the real question might be, where does it ever say we have to come in the morning. It may be that Sunday evening was a common practice based on Acts 20:7, especially given the daily responsibilities required of servants.
Are we trending in the right direction when we seek less time worshiping with other believers? Consider some UNINSPIRED QUOTES from various secular sources which speak to early attitudes about worship:
1) “You shall come together more frequently and seek the things benefi-cial for your souls.” (Didache—16:2)
2) “Seek daily the faces of the saints…” (ibid. 19:10)
3) “Let assemblies be held more frequently; seek all by name.” (Polycarp)
4) “...let us come together more frequently and try to make progress in the commandments of the Lord in order that we may all be of the same mind and may be gathered together unto life.” (2 Clement 17:3)
Consider the following questions next time you’re tempted to take ad-vantage of the paired down worship periods offered by some today: What example are you setting for your children? Are the mental gymnastics by which you justify yourself in offering the bare minimum requirements of God honoring or insulting to Him? Do your worship plans reflect the atti-tude of one who soul longs for the assembly, or of one who is weary of worship (Mal. 1:13)?
