Skipping Church
Graven Image
Shipmate
in Heaven
If you regularly attend church and have no assigned duties for the service, what would keep you home? I usually attend our Saturday late afternoon service. Today, in honor of St. Francis, it is the blessing of the animals, so it will be held outside in the courtyard. It is now 99 degrees F, and I do not expect it will be much cooler in another hour when the service starts. I have decided to stay home rather than sit on an uncovered patio in the sun. I also hope people bring pictures of pets and leave them at home. I do stay home if feeling unwell to avoid passing on my germs, especially now that we have COVID in the mix. What keeps you at home on the Lord's day?
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When I was out in St. Louis for my brother's 40th wedding anniversary, I contented myself with watching a church service from "back home" on my computer.
99 F? Here in Florida, I’m assuming? (Waves from Tampa Bay.)
OMG I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you guys got it too…
Otherwise I skip if I’m sick or really, really tired—not just normal tired but exhausted, typically after traveling. But barring those things, I’m there.
I learned during the pandemic that online church just isn’t for me, so if I don’t make it there in person for some reason, I’m very unlikely to watch it online.
(*) In fairness, I think alot of them have more active family and social lives than me, though I also suspect my penchant for weekly attendance is a holdover from Catholicism.
Unfortunately my co-walk leader has just phoned up sick, so I'll be doing it single handedly. If my husband were not already covering my church duties I might ask him to come, but as it is, I'm on my own.
I'd rather be going to church than leading the walk single-handedly.....
We're currently on a church hiatus. Been about six months now. We had been attending a church some twelve miles away but while it does lots of good stuff it's good stuff in a community that we don't live and work in and that doesn't
work. Making some efforts to find somewhere nearby but it's not easy.
( grandchildren) reasons, but my family know that church is my priority.
I rarely attend our monthly family service, as I find it irritating, infantilising and musically bereft.
Other services- it depends how tired I am eg if I had a concert the night before. I must admit in winter if I were not in the choir I would be reluctant to turn out on a dark wet night for Evensong,
I wouldn’t go to the online service instead, my life is spent teaching online.
The downside is that our current pastor is very keen on themes, and I will usually only hear 1 sermon out of every 4. I could catch up online, but I usually don't.
I go to a weekly homegroup and join a Facebook church once a month, so those provide more of my spiritual input.
Something about the Covid shut downs changed our relationship to church. There were a lot of factors - discovering the unexpected pleasure of sleeping in on a Saturday morning when we would normally have been getting up for church; the convenience of sometimes being able to tune in to an online service from the couch (not always our home congregation -- sometimes we'd pick one with music or a preacher we liked better), and the disillusionment that resulted from some of the rifts in our church over Covid precautions. We are still active members and still take part in church life, but we will consciously make a plan now when we get scheduled for roles in the worship service, to arrange things so that we have "weeks off" in case we just feel like staying home -- and this year, over the summer, we excused ourselves from all church responsibilities in July and August so we could spend every weekend at our cabin out of town. Occasionally we would tune into the online service from there, but more often Saturday morning would find us out in our kayaks on the lake. I know the "worshipping God in nature" thing can be a bit of a trite excuse sometimes, but there definitely are times it feels holier to me than sitting in a pew!
There is, unless you're the clergy person -- but I would say our church is like most, in which the able and the willing are roped into some sort of responsibility every week (maybe not in big churches, but almost universally true in smaller ones, I think). We really had to make a concerted effort to do less in order to have those weekends free so we could *choose* whether or not to attend instead of being obligated. Even at that, it can be a struggle. I think we've got one free Saturday in October, possibly two in November. But it's still an improvement over feeling we have to be there every week. Nobody is irreplaceable, after all.
Here endeth the digression.
I think the mental change happened for us re church attendance when the kid was sick. When he was in hospital for 10 months we had a visit from our priest from home, he and his wife and friends travelled 3 hours to come as we wanted to have him baptised, we appreciated that a lot and that we shared communion all together.
Other than that I found hospital ministry hit and miss, we couldn't attend a service at a firm time due to being in a state of constant flux. We did have a very simple kids' bible study which we worked through with out kid, but actually didn't want much in terms of input. Being visited every week and sitting with someone and having to say a psalm was exhausting and not nourishing. I would have preferred someone being able to drop off communion for us. You might wonder why I never asked for this, it's because I've only worked it out 14 years later and at the time, you don't want to appear to be ungrateful for anything and being ungrateful wins one no friends!!
Having returned home and struggled with regular church (not wanting to get sick from contacts) and having persisted alone for a while with zoom. I'm less inclined to try to fit into a timetable for anything, but I'd not thought of trying to find sermons etc which might work for me. I've moved quite a way from my GLE young adulthood and more into a space of wanting to be quiet, be reflective and not so much of spending time on rosters and endless energy into things that don't resonate with much of the community. I think I have enough of my own issues to work on and sort out!!
I have always had a difficult relationship with church services. Perhaps it's partly because I wasn't brought up in a churchgoing family (my mother was but hated it so much she refused to inflict it on us).
I got a free pen with the church website address printed on it and a packet of biscuits when I attended the Scots' Church in Melbourne in July!
We stay with my bro-in-law quite a lot, just south of Dublin. When there I often make an effort to go to a small Church of Ireland. The priest is a middle-aged lady, and the first time I was there and she got a large monkey puppet out of a box, my heart sank and I prepared to squirm. But she was, and is, brilliant at it - a really, really funny, spontaneous ventriloquis-h act, a total pro. And I am a fairly miserable bloke who is easily discouraged, in church especially, where hanging onto faith in the face of the half-arsed things we sometimes offer can be a challenge. If I go and she is not rostered / the puppet (think 'Cuddles' - 'I hate that duck') does not come out, I am disappointed. So yes - church elsewhere can be interesting, and church when on holiday can be something really nice to do!
That would be my downfall, if we were at a place that did such services. I love animals and am far too allergic to them.
Several congregations of which I've been part bring animals indoors, at the main Sunday Eucharistic service, for the blessing of the animals.
My current congregation did an outdoor blessing of the animals this past Friday, and one parishioner asked me, quite indignantly, why we didn't have the animals indoors at a main Sunday service. My response - that this community was concerned about the needs of people with allergies - was not well received.
In the case of this past Sunday, we had the blessing at the beginning of the service. Most people took their dogs out to their vehicles after that--it was not hot Sunday, and the vehicles were ventilated. For the few that stayed with their owners, they got a doggie treat during communion. I know, sacrilege!!!
Giving treats might be safer than laying hands on their heads and pronouncing a blessing ...
The Vicar of Dibley has a lot to answer for.
Re: going/not going:
When David died, I took a break of a few weeks and then went back to singing in the cathedral choir in Fredericton, and continued until I left to move back to Scotland about six months later. At first when I moved back I was staying with my sister, who doesn't do church any more, and neither did I. I suppose I could have gone into Edinburgh to the cathedral, but at that point, I'm not sure if I could have coped with proper church music, as I would realise how much I was missing it (and David!).
When I got my own place in Linlithgow, we were still sort of under lockdown, and I didn't really think about church although I knew St Pete's was just over the road. I decided, on a whim, one Sunday in Lent that I'd give it a go, and I've been a regular ever since. I think the only things that have kept me away have been illness (when I had Covid I didn't want to share it around), or being Away. If I'm in Orkney on a Sunday, I'll go to St Magnus Cathedral, and may well be asked to sing in the choir.
Our previous rector had animals attend the regular Sunday morning Eucharist for this. Current rector offers an afternoon blessing and parish picnic on the rectory lawn, which seems rather better to me.
I don't think any of our household's animals would really appreciate being taken to church. The cats don't like being taken anywhere, and would be unhappy if they caught the scent of other cats (let alone the d word). The snake is pretty good-natured and would happily spend a church service coiled around my daughter's shoulders, but some of the other parishioners might not be so comfortable with a snake being present. I don't think he'd really enjoy it, though. The other tank-dwellers probably wouldn't really care, but we'd need to transport them in their tanks, and that's all a bit of a pain.
When I moved in with my partner, I kept my membership at my old church which is an hour and a half away on the other side of London. My intention was to find a church to call home nearer my new residence, but sadly the circuit is pretty dysfunctional and I found going to church was causing me stress. Both my work and my partner's take us out of action some weekends, our working week comprises long long days which mean that a lie in on a Sunday is a blessing, and we get called upon for so many other reasons at weekends too that our time together is extremely precious (and my non-Christian partner has been put off going to church with me by some of the things he has experienced there). I do feel there are things I could do in my local church to help put things right, but I am there too rarely for that. As I work full time for the church and get to attend prayers three days a week too, I don't currently feel as though I am missing out too much.
I am, however, looking forward greatly to the time when the two of us move back to the Isle of Wight when my partner retires. There the church is just up the road, our weekends will be less in demand, we'll be able to have a lie in every day if we choose and my partner feels comfortable saying he'll come to church with me. No plans to take the cat or the house bunny with us, though!
That would have sent David running for the hills, and I wouldn't have been far behind him. <shudder>