Reflection for June 17

If I were to ask my parents whether “church worked for them,” they would likely not understand the question. They didn’t expect church to work. Or, more accurately, they went to church out of a sense of faithfulness. That’s just what you did on Sunday morning. Sure, sometimes it was more uplifting and inspiring than others, but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t go with the primary expectation that church would “meet their needs,” but rather attended out of a mixture of faith, habit, and duty…. Like it or not, the days when people go to church in large numbers just because “they’re supposed to” are over. And, to be honest, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. My heart is strangely warmed by the idea that people may someday go to church because they actually want to (David Lose, “Will Churches Go the Way of Bookstores?” on his blog …in the Meantime).