So, I was thinking tonight, again, how we can rarely have people over to our home in the evenings. We usually spend evenings alone as a family with the exception of Tuesday night when we have our church cell group. We watch movies or play games (Mariah does come over about once a week to kill us at Settlers of Catan). But church really hinders our relationships with others.
Many of our friends attend all or most of these meetings (many of them required attendance):
- Sunday: Church 4 PM
- Monday: Leaders meeting 7 PM
- Tuesday: Cell Group 7 PM
- Wednesday: School Staff Meeting 6:30 PM
- Thursday: Prayer Meeting 7 PM
- Friday: Young Adult Night 7 PM
- Saturday: Worship Practice 7 PM
Granted that not everyone attends all of them, but are they going to want to go out on one of their two nights off? Probably not. Church culture here is very focused on meetings and not so much on being in the community. In fact, they are told quite strongly to stay out of certain community events for fear of temptation and church image. Some churches have a regular church meeting every night and then three on Sundays. The pastors really have nothing new to say, they just say it really loud and repeat it for an hour and a half.
So, I'm quite disappointed that so many of the nights are eaten up by official meetings (which I personally have no interest in attending). I'd be quite happy attending a church which formally met once a month. For an hour.
2 comments:
I agree, but sometimes if they are not doing the meetings they are doing something else, not being in fellowship with friends and like minded people. It is different here, as we have so many things pulling us in all directions, so the meetings don't get well attended, but there is community in other commitments. If we are home in the evening, we don't usually have company. Sometimes we are just peopled out from the commitments. I guess it is similar.
I'm sure if you asked why they do that they will find some obscure passage in the Bible to justify it. At least you don't have to attend all these meetings.
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