How Do You View Sunday?

Mike Leake

What is the first day of the week?

I’m pretty sure I missed the answer to that question in elementary school. For me, Monday was the first day of the week. Sunday was the last. Sunday was football day. Lunch at grandma’s. Play day. A day of relaxation and trying to squeeze that last bit of joy out of a dying week before another one was rebirthed on Monday morning.

Eventually the school system, and all my calendars, drilled it in my head that Sunday was, in fact, the first day of the week. (At least in the US, Canada, and Japan). But old habits die hard. Though I technically agreed with this dating system, my heart was still oriented towards Sunday being the last day of the week. Monday is when the action begins.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that my view of Sunday changed. In fact I would say that it is vital to our health as Christians to view Sunday as the first day of the week and not the last. I’m not saying this because of Sabbath rules and regulations. I’m saying this because it changes the way we think about what we do and who we are when we gather on a Sunday morning.

If Sunday is the end of the week then our gathering is going to be a celebration (or perhaps mourning) of the previous week, where we try to thank God as we put another week to bed. Our Sunday gathering will be the big event of the week—the culmination of all our efforts. We’ll judge the effectiveness of our week based upon metrics attained on Sunday morning.

But what if Sunday is the first day of the week? What if rather than putting a week to rest we are celebrating a new week, new mercies, and new challenges? Our Sunday gathering will not be the big event of the week. It’ll be ground zero. The day when training and equipping and encouraging happens. We’ll judge the effectiveness of our week based upon metrics attained throughout the week.

Do you see the difference?

The way you view your Sunday impacts the way you’ll walk in and out of church. It’ll impact the events you put into your calendar on Sunday’s. Are you trying to squeeze every little bit of life out of a dying week or are you using day one to get every bit of training and charging up for the rest of the week?

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Photo source: here

My Children’s Curriculum Conundrum

Mike Leake 3 Comments

I’m having a bit of a difficult finding children’s curriculum right now. Honestly, I’m pretty disappointed in the selection of so much of the curriculum. I feel like we keep getting moralism and/or dryness shoved down our throats because that is just the way the industry and the market is.

Allow me to explain a bit about my context. I don’t think it is that unique, but it might help to understand why I’m so frustrated.

We live in an area that is hit pretty hard by broken homes, drugs, poverty, and kids who are caught in the crossfires. About a year ago we started feeding our community a free meal on Wednesday evenings. And we also worked on strengthening and expanding our bus ministry. We went from having about 50-60 kids to 130 and climbing. I would say about 80% of these kids come from unchurched families. Many of them don’t even know the name of Jesus’ mother.

Honestly, we’ve grown way faster than we’re been equipped for. We have a great group of leaders and volunteers but every week has been a learning experience. Right now our major task is picking a curriculum that is both Christ-centered and theologically-solid and fits the dynamics of our ministry. I’m having a terrible time finding this curriculum. Here is the problem:

The curriculum that is engaging and written with unchurched kids in mind is drenched in moralism and light on Jesus. The curriculum that is phenomenal theologically isn’t geared towards unchurched kids who are from broken homes and possess little Bible knowledge.

Why in the world doesn’t this curriculum exist? Why is that the action points in about 80% of these lessons is, “You can make a right choice for God” and not based on the accomplishments of Jesus? The first test any curriculum has to pass for me is whether children are left in their own hands or in the hands of Jesus. As Bryan Chapell has rightly said, “Whether people depart alone or in the Savior’s hand marks the difference between futility and faith, legalism and true obedience, do-goodism and real godliness”.  I throw out a ton of the curriculum on this first test.

Honestly, at this point I usually look at some of the curriculum coming out of more Reformed-minded folks. And you know what I find here? Stuff that does really good at teaching gospel truths and doctrine, and would be phenomenal for kids who have a parent that can walk through these questions with them, but is written on a level that will befuddle our kids. Believe me, I will shout from the rooftops that the power is found in God’s Word and not in a bunch of trivial junk we often do to try to engage kids. But you can also err in speaking a language these kids don’t even understand. And that’s what happens with so much of the solid Bible curriculum, it almost always assumes some prior Bible knowledge.

Why in the world does “go-deeper” mean connect things to Christ? That isn’t the next level of Christian discipleship, it is the A-Z of the Christian life. So why in the world can we not have something written on an introductory level that is engaging to unchurched kids and also absolutely grounded in the gospel?

Sort of an Open Letter

Dear Reformedish folk, I know that the ideal is to have parents actively discipling their children. And please continue writing stuff that consistently tries to train, involve, and equip and parents. But please don’t write curriculum which totally relies upon that. Because we don’t live in an ideal world. We live with tons of brokenness and we have scores of kids whose only concept of mom and dad might be their midweek Bible study teacher. Help that Bible teacher out by providing some good twenty minute studies that are grounded in the gospel. Help us put together curriculum which can help build relationships with these kids, create an atmosphere soaked in the gospel, and shorter Bible studies which will introduce kids to Christ.

Dear knocking-it-out-of-the-park-with-being-engaging people, you’ve put a ton of work into writing material which will relate to kids and make the teachers job easier. Please, oh please, have a little more confidence that the gospel really is exciting. I know it’s so much easier and parents absolutely love it when we tell kids how to behave but I beg you stop writing stuff which will only churn out more and more Pharisees. Ground EVERYTHING in the gospel. Don’t just tack on stories about Jesus or have a gospel presentation somewhere during the quarter. Show us how Jesus relates to everything and how his finished work is everything that kids need! Show them how what Jesus did motivates our obedience.

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I’m open to any curriculum suggestions you have. I’m looking for midweek stuff, though. We use The Gospel Project for Sunday school (love what they are doing). It needs to be easily accessible for the teachers, understandable for the kids, engaging, and above all truly Christ-centered.

Photo source: here  (That’s about how I feel right now trying to find suitable curriculum)

Read This! 01/19

Mike Leake

With Greater Age Comes Greater Sorrow

I absolutely love the way Tim ended this article.

The Danger of Entertaining Lies

We would do well to follow the path of Jesus and just say, “It is written…”

When Christians Act Like Mormons

Yep.

What To Do (And What Not to Do) When Your Pastor Moves On

Sound advice.

Pray For Your Church Leaders

Please.

7 Ways to Care For Your Wife

Lists like this are helpful reminders for goobers like me. Love the specificity and ideas.

Rhett and Link do a speech jammer prank call challenge:

When You Have a Case of the Monday’s on Sunday

Mike Leake 4 Comments

I’ve read (and even written) a fair share of articles on how to survive Monday morning as a pastor. Monday’s can be absolutely brutal. Part of it is an adrenaline crash the other part is that it’s just a brutal time of self-reflection and often fielding criticisms. Monday’s are tough. But what do you do when your Monday morning blues start on Sunday morning?

That happened to me this Sunday. I go through seasons of melancholy and for some reason the old black dog is wanting to make his home in my heart right now. So I woke up Sunday morning with zero confidence that I’d be able to preach that day. Actually it wasn’t the preaching that scared me, it was the need for me as a pastor to be “on”. Shaking hands, having conversations, fielding questions, just being social was the last thing I wanted to do. And knowing that I had an ice cream social, deacons meeting, Sunday evening service, and business meeting staring down at me didn’t inspire confidence either.

But I know that I cannot check out. I don’t want to speak for everyone but in my case, that’s the last thing a depressed person needs to do—check out. I cannot feed the monster. So I’ve got to pull myself out of bed, put on my dress clothes, and go pastor. Even if I don’t feel like it. At all. And you had better believe that this opens up the door to all sorts of accusations from the enemy that I’m nothing more than a rank hypocrite who doesn’t feel very much the things that I’m preaching.

This last Sunday wasn’t the first time I’ve had a case of the Monday’s on a Sunday. I’ve been to this rodeo before and I’ve learned a few things at least about myself that helps me, maybe it will help you. These aren’t tips to feel better or to pull yourself out of the doldrums and get excited about your Sunday morning. That might happen, but more than anything these are tips to help you feel around in the dark a little bit until the light comes back on.

Here are 5 things (in no particular order) that have helped me:

  1. Be responsibly honest. Hopefully as a pastor you have at least one person in your congregation that you can let them know that you are absolutely miserable that day. Encourage them to pray with you and for you. Just admitting to another brother in Christ that you are wrestling with such inner turmoil can provide a bit of healing and strength.
  2. Remember your job. I think I could have also labeled this as “remember where the power comes from”. This past Sunday I preached on 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. I felt every bit of it. Weakness. Fear. Trembling. I knew that my only job on Sunday was to proclaim God’s Word and his goodness and let him do the work. Depression can be our friend in this regard. I wasn’t tempted to strap one bit of unwarranted responsibility on my shoulders. I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew what my job was and wasn’t about to arrogantly grab hold of things only the Lord can do.
  3. Get alone with God. You won’t feel like it, but squeeze a bit of time out of your schedule and do something. Pray. Listen to a worship song that will strengthen your soul. Read a bit of Scripture. Just cry out to God and let him know your absolute desperation.
  4. Preach the gospel to yourself. Don’t do the third thing without this fourth thing. You’ll be tempted to just vent and start feeling sorry for yourself and spend your time telling God how terrible things are. Don’t stop there. Preach the gospel to yourself until you believe it. Try to tune out all the other voices and just rest in the finished work of Jesus. Everything could blow up in your face on Sunday morning and it wouldn’t change what Christ has accomplished. So rest. Even if you unravel, He remains.
  5. Get to work. Your feelings aren’t sovereign, God is. You aren’t a hypocrite because you are proclaiming things that your wrecked heart is having a hard time grabbing hold of. You are actually showing your confidence in the Lord by obeying the Word even when your affections are numb. Mourn the fact that you aren’t serving the Lord with gladness but keep working and praying that your affections will soon follow. If this keeps happening, though, you might need to look a bit deeper and consider your calling. But today, put your hand to the plow and trust that the Lord uses broken vessels.

I’ve actually walked into the pulpit absolutely miserable but left with a renewed confidence in Christ. But I’ve also had it happen that my whole Sunday was miserable and discouraging and it carried over to a terrible Monday. I don’t think there is a formula for this. It’s just an opportunity for us weak people and pardoned rebels to cling to a very strong Christ.

The lights will come on…eventually.