Eclectic Christian

By Michael Bell

Last Sunday we did not go to church. This was the first time in a long time for us. Even during vacations we find a place to go close to wherever we might be camping. But this past Sunday we chose not to go.

Why? On Saturday night my wife and I looked at each other and agreed that our lives had just been too busy. Our kids had been cranky all week, and we really needed some down time. So we stayed home, did a family devotional with some music and prayer, and then spent time playing with our kids (with a two hour break for raking leaves, but that is another story.) It was quite interesting to see how much better mood the kids were in on Monday morning.

So what were we so busy with? Micah 6:8 says what God expects of us – “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” So obviously we were spending our time doing acts of justice and mercy, as well as focusing on spending time with God. Right.

No, our time did not look anything like that. Our week includes 3 music lessons, 2 hockey games, 1 dance practice, choir, two Bible studies, youth group, worship team practice (alternate weeks), kids club, hosting small group (alternate weeks), Sunday school and Church worship service. Of course we can take solace in the fact that we are only half as busy as we were at our previous church where we were responsible for planning, organizing and running many of the activities.

In all our busyness, one thing has certainly taken a back seat, building relationships with our neighbors. We have been so busy with our own lives that we don’t have time for theirs. The problem is, if we don’t have significant relationships with our neighbors then there is no way that we can [it makes it much harder to] effectively share with them about the good news of Jesus Christ.
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By Michael Bell.

Update: I have changed the order in which I am tackling things.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing a number of posts that will be looking at things that hinder the gospel or distract from it.

The first topics that I am going to tackle have to do with some things that I have recently seen that have prevented the gospel from being proclaimed. They are:

• Busyness
• Politics and the Culture War
• Church Contentment

I will be discussing each one in a separate post. I would also like to issue an open invitation to the other authors of Eclectic Christian to contribute to the discussion through comments or their own posts as the series gets rolling.