Going to church is a pain?

We were talking once at church about which services people attend and why. Some of the obvious things were parents with young children go to the morning services 1) because they are up early and 2) because there are activities organised for them. Others said they went to the 5pm service because lots of the other young people went there so they could catch up with each other. Some people however were of the opinion that they went to the first service in the morning so that the rest of the day was theirs. This is understandable. People do not want to go to a morning and evening service which basically uses up their whole Sunday when they have worked all week or otherwise go to a 5pm service that means they don't get a whole day to do something, especially if they want a lie-in the morning.

I then thought however that this state of mind was slightly disturbing. Church was seen as a burden rather than a blessing, something to try and fit in with our 'normal' life, something that didn't get us excited and therefore pushed to the top of our priority list but something to be tolerated, to prove how good a Christian we are. This is most sad. The early church seemed to be full of meaning, power, love, practical service to each other. I guess the root problem is that for most people and most churches, this is no longer the case.

Personally I think this is a 2-sided problem. On the one hand, many leaders in many churches are either not spritual enough to even know how God wants them to run their churches or otherwise spiritual people are still bound by traditions and order and control and programmes rather than being spirit led and fluid in their approach. When was the last time your church broke with its usual format? The other side however is that it is hard to be like that when the members of the church are not supporting the ministries of the church. While people are simply sitting through services and not being part of youth work, or womans work, or mens work, or prayer ministry or healing minstry etc, the leadership can only do so much.

The solution in my own opinion is simple yet costly. Leadership have to remove the scaffolding or saefty net from the way the church is run and they need to insist on members being involved in ministries. There can be no excuse. I can't see any way for somebody to be a Christian or church member and not be involved in at least one minstry even if it is only practical rather than spiritual. From the members point of view, we all need to insist on being involved, even if the leadership are not very good at delegating, we need to insist on our God given right and expectation to be part of the body of Christ and not, as in some cases, just an annoying rash getting in the way of the leadership. I don't think it can be enacted from just one side and that is why communication is required. if people don't like it, they can leave - hopefully they will find somewhere else they like - but the people who remain will be something useful and powerful in the Kingdom of God.