I don’t know when we began to believe that being busy was better than resting, that busy people are somehow more important, and that being exhausted was somehow noble. I suspect it goes back to a thing called the “Protestant Work Ethic” which proclaimed, among other things, that “the devil finds work for idle hands”. It seems that our world has become obsessed with busy-ness, with working long hours and with not resting enough. We fill our time with all sorts of stuff to do, afraid that we might end up being bored if we don’t, and we live with a constant soundtrack of noise, because we can no longer stand the silence. Try asking people to observe a whole minute of silence next time you’re in church and see how that goes down!
Perhaps I’m preaching only to myself, but I don’t think so. I see the stress on faces as I walk down the street. I read the statistics that show that our relationships are breaking under the strain. I can still remember the days when shops closed at one o’clock on Saturdays and were not open on Sundays at all, so I can’t help but see the difference now that shopping is almost 24/7!
I know that, for many of us, the pace at which we live is not our choice. We work for bosses in an economy that gives them all the power. If we won’t work the hours, they’ll just find someone else who will. But, even in the face of this reality, we need to hear the Bible’s call to Sabbath - which is really just a call to rest. If there is anything that can help us to hear and respond to this call, it’s worship. What worries me, though, is that so often our worship feels no different. We cram as much into the time as we can. We’re driven to grow the church numerically and financially. We want to make sure we’re in touch with the latest “cutting-edge” technology, or style, or strategy, and it all becomes just as much of a treadmill as any other organisation on any other day of the week.
So, here’s an idea. What if we slowed down a bit? What if we began to allow our worship to follow the rhythms of Sabbath - times of work and intensity, but also times of silence and rest? What would happen if we began to put our energy into healing and strengthening and feeding the souls of those who worship with us, and left the “growth” to God? What if we stopped trying to be “impressive” and just worked smarter at being Church?
What would this mean for us? It might mean that we plan and prepare worship with the Gospel as our main focus, and God’s glory as our main desire. It might mean that we would learn that the important thing is that we just show up - just observing the Sabbath changes us, even though we may not always see it. It might mean that we let ourselves off the hook a bit and allow worship to be a time, not of striving, but of resting in God’s grace, soaking in God’s Spirit, and just enjoying loving and being loved by God.
There is so much more I could say about this, but I’m off on holiday in a couple of days, so it’s time to slow down, to stop, and to rest.
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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.