Meet Lazy Lawrence. Lawrence is like some Midtown folks in that he attends the Gathering, at best, once or twice a month. Lazy Lawrence is fine with his attendance record. “Besides,” he thinks, “church isn’t all about Sundays anyway. So why does it matter if I come every Sunday or not?” Unfortunately, Lawrence is unaware of a few problems with his mentality. We thought we’d take a moment to point them out:
- Using good theology to encourage lazy methodology is bad theology. Lawrence is right in thinking that church is more than what happens on Sunday, but wrong in thinking that gives him license to be lazy and avoid something that scripture tells us is important.
- Shortchanging and confusing your family. Lazy Lawrence is sending extremely mixed signals to his kids. While he prays before meals and tells his kids that Jesus came to save them from their sins, his lackluster desire to even show up to the Gathering makes them wonder how important this Jesus guy is. “Besides,” they think, “if Jesus isn’t important enough to get out of bed for on Sundays, is he really that important at all?”
- Sunday apathy usually isn’t alone. If Lawrence isn’t at least excited enough about Jesus to show up and worship with church family, chances are he’s actually not that excited about Jesus period. Usually people who can’t give an hour and a half a week on Sundays have an even harder time leveraging their entire lives for the gospel.
But in all seriousness, the gospel sets us free from all kinds of things. Not the least of them is apathy and laziness. Because Jesus endured the cross for us, we can put our big boy and big girl pants on, take off the old self, put to death apathy and laziness, attend Gatherings, and get excited about Jesus, all out of gratitude for what he’s done for us.