Planning for the Lord's Day

  • Tim Challies
  • 05/08/10
  • 6

In his book Expository Listening (read my review) Ken Ramey offers a list of ways you can “Plan Ahead, and Schedule Your Week Around the Ministry of the Word.”

“For the majority of people, even church members, church is not the priority of their week. Too often school, work, sports, and other activities take precedence over going to church. They make the mistake of letting their time be ordered by the world, which views the weekends as a time to relax, to play sports, to stay up late and sleep in. For Christians, however, Sunday should be the most important day of the week. You should try to schedule your work, activities, get-togethers, and vacations around church. You should live by the principle that Sunday morning starts Saturday night.”

He offers several practical suggestions on how to prioritize the Lord’s Day:

  • Make it a habit to be home on Saturday night.
  • Be careful not to do, watch, or read anything that will cause lingering distractions in your mind the next day.
  • Get things ready on Saturday night to alleviate the typical Sunday morning rush (lay out clothes, set the table, write the offering check, stock the diaper bag, etc).
  • Get a good night’s sleep so you can be sharp and energetic to worship and serve God. It’s hard to listen when you’re nodding off.
  • Eat a simple but adequate breakfast that will hold you until lunch. It’s difficult to hear over the grumbling of your stomach.
  • Work together with the other members of your family to get ready, and to establish and maintain a godly atmosphere on the way to church. Listen to music, sing, and pray together.
  • Arrive at church ten minutes early instead of ten minutes late so you have enough time to find a parking spot, drop the kids off in the nursery or their Sunday school classes, get a cup of coffee, visit with your friends, and find a seat.

“When you fail to plan ahead,” he warns, “Sunday morning ends up becoming a chaotic crisis, and by the time you get to church, you are frustrated and frazzled and your heart is in no condition to receive the Word. But when you plan well and are able to arrive in a relaxed, leisurely way, you will be in a much more receptive frame of mind.”

There is some valuable food for thought as we all look forward to worshiping the Lord tomorrow.

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Comments (6)

1
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Matthew Anderson • 05/08 @ 4:12pm
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Thanks, Tim, for the helpful list. I’m intrigued by his recommendation to eat a breakfast that will hold us over before lunch. For the past few years, I have gone the opposite direction, and have fasted every Sunday morning and broken it after lunch, as part of my attempt to acknowledge and confes that we do not “live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

I offered my own list on the discipline of listening to sermons earlier this year (http://mereorthodoxy.com/?p=2126). I wish I had known about Ramey’s book then. Thanks for higlighting it.

2
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a comment from Christian Ray Flores • 05/08 @ 7:40pm
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Great list Tim, it addresses a strong trend for church to be a just a thing to do, not the beginning of a special peaceful, worshipful, day.

3
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Corey • 05/08 @ 8:18pm

Thanks for posting, I love seeing these Sunday preparation articles pop up on the weekend. They really do show where our focus needs to be, and they help prepare my heart.

4
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Ben • 05/08 @ 9:06pm

That first point is very hard for me. I go to church in the evening, and can’t make it in the morning. My Sunday starts out at 12:00am, in the city, standing around a man who is preaching the Gospel, and talking to those who do not know Him, about this mystery of being reconciled to God that He has revealed in His Word. I work 5 days a week from Monday to Saturday, and this is the only day I get, as I start work early and finish late.

5
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Deb W. • 05/09 @ 4:00pm
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I’m with Matt right now in attending the Sunday service. I was used to eating a big breakfast to hold me over. But now my church has communion every Sunday, so I found the morning fast quite helpful in relying on Christ as my bread of life. Not sure if I will always do it, but right now I find it beneficial.

6
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Andrew Faris • 05/11 @ 12:47pm
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Tim,

While there is some clear wisdom in this (we are often foolish with our Saturday nights, mindlessly and needlessly staying up too late), it strikes me that making a point of staying in is potentially a massive missional sacrifice- in a bad way. Non-Christians hang out on Friday and Saturday nights by far the most, so it seems to me that saying “We’re staying in on Saturday nights to be ready for Sunday mornings” sacrifices about 50% of potential social time spent making relationships with lost people.

What’s more, doing all of this in the name of “worship and service” (as the fourth point explicitly says) reflects a pretty poor theology of worship, doesn’t it? If we really believe that worship is an all of life thing, why put so much emphasis on Sunday morning? God cares far more about the lives we live than the songs we sing. That much is clear.

Again, I don’t want to neglect the clear wisdom in these points- it really is there. But let’s be passionate in engaging in God’s mission and a little less Sunday morning focused. I wonder if part of the reason others did not respond this way is because we simply don’t have non-Christian friends that we actually would spend social time with!

By the way, I’ve written a little more thoroughly on this at our blog specifically in response to this post, and I’d be happy for some feedback.

Andrew Faris

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