Adjusting to an Ever Varying Sunday Schedule
When my wife and I started our journey of visiting fifty-two churches in a year, one variable seemed trivial at first but had wide ramifications. That item was service times.
With church starting times as early as 8 a.m. and as late as 11:30 a.m., our Sundays looked quite different each week. As bedtime loomed each Saturday night, the common question became, “What time is Church tomorrow?”
The answer determined when we got up in the morning, how much free time we had before church, when we could expect to eat lunch, and what we had time to do in the afternoon.
Factor in services lasting between one hour and two and half hours, with up to two hours of informal community afterwards, we had no idea when we might return home.
Including drive time, our Sunday morning church experience would take between seventy minutes and three and a half hours.
For a person who likes the rhythm of a regular schedule, my Sunday routine was thrown into disarray.
While assaulting my status quo wasn’t all bad, sometimes my time with God was the casualty of this ever-changing timetable. Isn’t that ironic?
[Read about our journey of visiting 52 churches.]
My wife and I visited a different Christian Church every Sunday for a year. This is our story. Get your copy of 52 Churches today, available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
2 replies on “What Time is Church?”
I can see that you would prefer a more predictable schedule, Peter. Different schedules always cause me to do too much backward math – I have to be there at 10, it takes 30 minutes to get there, I need an hour to wake up. . . ok. I need to be up at 8:30. Waking earlier provides bonus time!
It is ironic that it was your time with God that didn’t get factored into the reverse equation at times.
Sally, though I did factor God into my schedule, sometimes I miscalculated and other times I didn’t use the time I had very wisely. This seems simple enough to do, but I sure struggled with it!