Sunday, March 04, 2007

Have you ever wonder what people do in Church? What does it meant by going to church? Why people say that they want/need to go church?

Church is a place to worship God. You can find church under places of worship in the map. But many a times people change the noun of the term. They worship man instead of God.

The purpose of coming to church is to worship God. It is His day. We should give the whole day to Him. Like the 1st day of Chinese New Year, we spend the whole day in the festive season, we should spend the whole day worshipping God on Sunday. That is the true meaning of coming to church. But sadly this is not reality.

I used to do the same. I play the whole day on Saturday and come to church on Sunday with a dead tired self. During the preaching, I would fall asleep or talk with the one next to me. Or even sms someone. After service, I would be rejuvenated and ready to go out to play again. I would go out with yong jie and Luke to swenson or somewhere to eat and after that go out. God seem to be gone in the whole equation. But God spoke to me and I am not doing the same thing again.

Christian in church nowadays are doing the same. Or at least there is a fraction of so that is doing this. They deliberately enter into the auditorium late. And of their conversation before the service is nothing related to God. It is either about Soccer game last night, new games in town, what they did the day before, where to eat after church or even where to go after church. It is as though the day is a day of outing.

No one can say no to this. I do admit that I never had this kind of attitude in church. The total anticipation of what to expect of God's word. I heard all this with my own ears and my own eyes.

I do not know about other churches in Singapore but for EFC, Youngsters come late for service and I sometimes wonder why. They are the usual group that come in late into the service and stay back late after the service in church. Or they can go and eat lunch after service and come back. Are they enthusiastic about church? I don't think so.

The only reason is that the purpose of them coming to church the event after the church. Be it going out to eat, watch a movie or to just go out and waste money. I have seen it many a times and I am quite sick of it. I am not saying that we should go to church and after that go home straight. But we should moderate our activities. Going out once in a while. In EFC, there are a lot of activities. For a normal member, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is all packed. If we still choose to go out after all this events and returning home late, we will not be a good testimony. For any parents, they would ask their child why are they always going out so late. Naturally they will relate church to late return and would blame everything to church. If not the time factor, it is the money. How much are we spending on an average week? Is it glorifying to God?

So what is the meaning of going to church on Sundays? Might as well don't go and just go out instead. Then you got more time to use. People say 'better late than never', but I disagree. You got no reason to be late for service. The cause is yourself. If you don't have the heart then don't come. False prophets suffers a worse fate than those who don't know God. So don't pretend that you have the heart to come and worship God.