sooo, this weekend people all over the united states will be celebrating a holiday…memorial day…a chance for everyone to show their patriotism…but i have a question…something for you to chew on…maybe something to get you fired up…who knows???
what role (if any) should this play in a church service???
last week i received an e-mail asking me what my thoughts were for service planning the weekend of memorial day…
what are your thoughts?…
for me…i grew up in a church where various patriotic holidays were highly celebrated…the 4th of july had it’s own service called the living flag…and looking back i am sad to say that took part in them…bow tie…cumberbund…the whole nine yards…but now i have a whole different perspective on things…
i’m convinced that each and every weekend we have one shot…some people in attendance at church will never be back…we have one shot to share Jesus with them…and i want to use every last second of our service to do that…in addition to that i want every aspect of our service to be pointing to God…not me…not the pastor who is speaking…not to a flag…not to a country(that isn’t so hot at honoring God)…but to ONE person…GOD…
sooo this was my response…
when it comes to things like memorial day…i’m of the view that God wasn’t from the US…Jesus wouldn’t have celebrated it in the temple…so i’m not one to get all patriotic, i just don’t think the church is the place for that…
so i would put mention of it during the benediction and leave it at that…
those are my thoughts on it…
this does not mean i don’t respect those who serve our country…or the long standing history behind it all…i just don’t think that church is the place to celebrate it…especially if it’s done for the simple reason of “we’ve always done it that way”…
i know that some of you may be offended by this…some may be shocked…some may be laughing…i don’t know and don’t really care at this point…but i would like to get your take on it…maybe share how your church handles situations like this…or how you view this situation…
what are your thoughts?…
