There’s something different about Sunday morning.
Monday through Friday, my neighbors and I are frantically getting ready for the day, walking from front doors to cars doors and nesting coffee tumblers in cupholders for the rush hour drives ahead. We’ll have meetings and classes and tasks and assignments—emails to answer, calls to make—all adding to the general hum of city life. Similarly busy, Saturday is the day of home improvement and self improvement. Lawnmowers and weedwhackers fill the air with activity as joggers and cyclists glide along through the streets. But there’s something different about Sunday morning.

I never used to experience Sunday morning when I was working in churches. My Sunday mornings involved waking up before dawn and rushing to a church building to prepare supplies for teachers, review my lesson notes, set out coffee and donuts, meet with other ministers, and tidy up any messes the cleaning staff had failed to address. While these mornings certainly had their joyous moments (particularly because I had a whole volunteer team working alongside me), they were anything but restful. Contrast that to a more recent Sunday:

It was my first Sunday with Cowbell, and the Well at Springfield’s brunch gathering at Hyperion Brewing didn’t start for another three hours. This meant I could take the puppy-sized cow for a longer, slower walk than usual. Cowbell trotted along close beside me, leaving slack on her leash and only tugging gently when interesting smells wafted toward her over the damp lawns. As we meandered up the street, cars remained still and silent in their driveways. Joggers and cyclists rested in their homes, and lawnmowers and weedwhackers slumbered in their garages. The sun yawned and stretched over the treetops, turning the atmosphere golden, and the persistent buzz of birds and bugs reverberated through the cool, humid air. The neighborhood was swaddled in a holy peace, and I couldn’t help but think back to the poem at the beginning of Genesis— the one where even God rests. I had never realized how much I needed this kind of morning, and I thought about my friends all over the country who regularly sacrifice such mornings to serve the church industrial complex.

One of my biggest concerns about the modern approach to church is how Sunday (which we still advertise as a “day of rest”) becomes one of the busiest days of the week. While there’s something to be said for faithfully communing, teaching, singing, and serving together every Sunday, when we start to treat these days as a chore, we lose the day’s intended meaning and deny ourselves rest. Of course, since we’re also wired for community, giving up church entirely and just walking my dog every Sunday would be an equally unhealthy extreme. Somewhere in the middle lies a balance, and I think church attendance in America is naturally heading toward this.

Back when I was in church-based ministry, my colleagues and I constantly bemoaned how the majority of church members only attended 25-50% of the time (which is in keeping with nationwide trends). We agonized over these numbers, encouraging people to attend every Sunday and Wednesday lest they miss out on formative time with their fellow Christians. I’m now convinced this was the wrong approach. After all, we weren’t just excited about church; we were also motivated by insecurity due to dwindling numbers. Looking back, I wish we had turned our focus toward making Sunday more rejuvenating instead of building bigger programs (which then placed more demands on our already-overworked members). Maybe giving our community breaks from all the structure and responsibility would have been the healthier approach. Now that I’ve left church-based ministry, I’ve seen this mindset work beautifully in other communities.
This is why StoryHouse has monthly parties instead of weekly worship gatherings.
This is why Swaim UMC relaxes together with a beer on Sunday evenings.
This is why the Well at Springfield takes “Sabbath Sundays” just to rest and share a meal together.
And sometimes, I just need to stay home and take an extra long walk with my dog before diving into a good book because my soul wants some solitude, and that’s okay too.

There are a lot of problems with our modern approach to church, and making the sabbath into another workday is one of the more toxic and pervasive. As such, it seems like there’s a sacredness to skipping church periodically, and if we start working these times of rest into our schedules, if we develop this discipline of giving grace to ourselves and our communities, we might just encounter Jesus there too.