Excited About Life!

The following is a slightly modified post from Pastor John Stoos. What do you think about the issues that he raises? Is this true? Are these good ideas? Why?

"We live in a very busy age: An age that is sadly busy with many of the wrong things! Many of us were raised in families where the ‘school schedule’ was sacrosanct and all church or family functions had to be worked around that schedule. We have come to think about the weekends being OUR time with church as sort of optional or maybe a priority if it does not take too much time. We have arranged three-day weekends for most of the national holidays so we can get away and don’t even know most of events on the church calendar.

. . . we have tried to restore some proper Biblical perspective by teaching that Sunday is the Lord’s Day where we gather for worship and rest from our labors. We move through the church calendar each year to remind us that Jesus and His work at the center of history and should be the center of our lives. We have also largely lost, as a church and as a society, the concept of festivals or special gatherings of the Saints. These have been replaced by family reunions and vacations, which are certainly not wrong in and of themselves, but cannot replace the gatherings that are patterned for us in the Scriptures. We are working to restore these Biblical events through special feast days . . . and our annual family camp. In the Old Covenant God called His people together for three major festivals each year, so we think having at least one per year would be a good idea in the New Covenant! [LET'S REALLY CELEBRATE WHAT GOD HAS DONE AND IS DOING AMONG US!] . . . We encourage all of our members to attend and to use some of their regular tithes if necessary to cover the costs. The biggest challenge is to make [a priority of] setting aside [the time to do this]."