Mere Sunday Christianity

The term "Sunday Christian" is one tier above the class of people who go to church exclusively on Christmas or Easter. So technically, for most of college years, I've been one step below a Sunday Christian -- I hadn't been going to church because campus ministry has been pretty amazing at meeting my needs for discipleship, mentorship, bible study, community, etc., and also a great outlet for personal ministry, so this past Easter was the first time in months that I'd really gone to church. (Okay, I went to Kurt's church once, but it had a food court.) I like this one, so far; I think I've been for four Sundays in a row, so I can now augment from being a "submarine Christian" that only surfaces twice a year.

All these derisive labels are rather tellingly explained on Wikipedia.

This past week, though, I really was a Sunday Christian. I led leaders' bible study on Monday about Ecclesiastes, and that went well, but from Monday until today, I really didn't give God a second thought. I had conflicts with both discipleship and Martel bible study, so I didn't participate in either of those, which makes me realize how dependent I sometimes am on structured events to begin seeking God. I think, without really thinking about it, I reassured myself with the thought that it was okay because on Sunday, I'd get right with God and start the week over again. There was no urgency to the now.

It was really easy to slip into being a Sunday Christian for a week.

I've had enough dry times to know that your faith isn't necessarily broken if you've spent some time away with God and you don't feel horrible as a result. That's a new believer's dilemma: "How can it be that I haven't spent any time with the Lord in the past few days and I still feel okay, I don't feel empty or miserable or anything without Him?" Well, hey, it's called grace, and God is sometimes super-nice to us, and no, you don't deserve to feel okay, but that's the whole point. And I don't think there's any problem with really seeking God in organized, disciplined routines -- discipline through regular churchgoing and bible study and discipleship at set points throughout the week are really amazing venues through which God can work in your heart. God even set incredibly regular, prescribed remembrance feasts for His people in Leviticus 23, which I think we can take to mean that not all our "authentic" spiritual experience has to be spontaneous or "organic." The sticky part about taking a disciplined approach to faith is that you have to have some discipline. I can say, I'll probably grow a lot in the Lord if I set aside these times to pursue Him in these ways, but I have to actually follow through, and often times I don't because I'm lazy.

And yet God has blessed my faith, unquestionably, unstintingly, in the last four years.

We fail at pursuing God through disciplined means, and we fail at pursuing God when we disavow "pre-packaged religion" and try to make it on our own terms. Here is the real meaning of 1 John 4:10: "This is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us." If I am growing in my faith and relationship with God and only putting in the paltry work of a Sunday Christian, then God's grace for me is far more than I deserve. Even in my failures, God is faithful to reveal Himself.

If there were ever anything to persuade me to the doctrine of predestination, it would be my own failure and God's overwhelming compassion towards me when I don't deserve a thing. The same could also be said about the gospel of Jesus Christ.