This Thursday was my opportunity to write the Pastor's Corner for our local paper. For all of you non-subscribers, here is the copy of my reflections.
Pastor's Corner: Why
Attend Church?
Last week a fellow
parishioner and I attended a district meeting of three Episcopal
churches in our area, St. Andrew's being one of the three. During
the meeting there was discussion on low church attendance at Sunday
Services. One of the people attending made the comment, “If more
of our members would just make the effort to drag themselves out of
bed on a Sunday morning we would have much better attendance.” I
have thought a lot about her statement and have found some real
wisdom in what she said but probably not in the way she meant it.
When I was a child I was
made to go to church because it was expected of me. In our
particular denomination Sunday was considered a holy day of
obligation and if you did not go to the service, it was a black mark
on your soul. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized I had
been going to church for the wrong reasons. I was going to church
out of fear and guilt and not out of a love of God and the desire for
spiritual growth.
A lot has changed since I
was a child. Churches cannot rely on fear and guilt as a way to
inspire people to attend services. Our places of worship need to be
places where people want to feel a sense of spiritual enrichment,
places where we make a joyful noise, places where we share our faith
with our church family.
When I look out at our
congregation on a Sunday morning, I see people who want to be there.
They enjoy each others company and they discuss with me and others
the good news of scripture. They share in Holy Communion and it is
meaningful to them. There is laughter. There is also reverence.
We all have holes in our
lives that we try to fill. Sometimes we try to fill that emptiness
with things like a new and bigger television, or money, or alcohol.
What so many do not realize is that this hole is a spiritual
emptiness that will only be filled with spiritual things.
I encourage you to attend
the service of your choice this week and may you grow spiritually.
Fr. Fred Steinbach
St. Andrew's Episcopal
Church
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