No service on Easter Sunday

Wow... Post #16,000. Congratulations, man.

 

D28guy,

Take a deep breath and come down off your fabricated soap box.

Like it or not, churches are filled on Easter Sunday with unbelievers. A church can respond in one of two ways: take advantage of the opportunity or not. A church that dismisses services on Easter Sunday opts for the latter and that is simply sad.

 

Only if you don't know what "sola scriptura" means. As I already pointed out, it has to do with authority. Sola Scriptura means Scripture is the authority, not man. You are apparently arguing against a doctrine that you don't yet understand. It is not difficult in the least to be sola scriptura without a personal copy of the Scriptures or the ability to read them.

 

trying2understand

the fact that most people didnt have access to scriptures is a very sad thing, not an excuse to let the evil people have authority ABOVE those scriptures, which is essentially what the Catholic church did.

 

Lord, have mercy on us all.

Is it only me or are others surprised that we are sitting in judgement as to why a Church isn't having an Easter Sunday service?

We don't know the reasons yet we are quick to make a spiritual judgement on this Pastor.

 

What possible reason could a Church cancel Church services on any Sunday? (I am not referring to such things as a Hurricane, Ice Storm etc..) Are they serious about Worship?

 

Well, we don't know if this person is in an area that has a large outdoor Easter sunrise service.

If so, does this service take away from those who would normally attend this church?

Perhaps this church is a small congregation and a majority of the parishioners are out of the area on Easter Sunday. Or it could be that this church may have an Easter Vigil service on Saturday evening.

I don't see how we can make any sort of judgement without knowing all the facts. Without the whole story we are merely pointing a finger at something we know nothing about.

 

Kiffin,

The original poster told us why. The pastor was on vacation. Whatever the reason, its not a big deal. Unless this is the only church building for many miles in all directions, there are churches all over the place if anyone wants to gather with Christians on easter. (Including any lost person who is seeking and wants to hear the gospel in a church building.)

God bless,

Mike

 

So a Church has to have a pastor there to have service?

Of course it is a big deal unless as Living4Him stated the Church is joining up with other churches for a Easter service. It however would be a sad testimony if they shut down just so they could get a Sunday off to lay around the house or spend time with their family. If that is the case then that is a shame.

 

Kiffin,

I said...

And you said...

No. Anyone can give a message. But for whatever reason this fellowship decided not to go that route, and rather to cancel the service.

I said...

And you said...

Why??? This is just amazing to me.

Are all the people that fellowship regularly there going to be plunged into doom and darkness forever because the service is cancelled? Of course not.

They are either going to...

1) Take advantage of the situation and sleep in if they want to.

2) Attend another church that day if they want to.

The lost people who might be searching are either going to...

1) Drive to another church somewhere for that service

2) Stay at home and listen to a radio or TV broadcast of a service.

That could very well be the case.

Unbelievable.

I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that the reason they called it off is so that everyone can "lay around the house" instead of having a service.

There was a reason they decided not to have someone give the message since the pastor is away, and whatever reason that is its no big deal!

Everyone that wants to go to a service can still go to a service somewhere.

And those that want to sleep in a bit, and spend the morning at home are not now on Gods "hit list" somewhere, unless they repent of the "sin" of spending quality time with their family at home on a Sunday morning.

Grace and peace to all,

Mike

[ March 17, 2004, 02:50 AM: Message edited by: D28guy ]

 

Mike,

I don't follow your logic or even your concept of what you believe a Church is.

I am glad those people are not members of my church if that is the case. With such a attitude every local church in the USA would collaspe. No one is talking about them going to eternal doom but the Why of closing a Service on Sunday and especially Easter.

I would too but Wait a minute what did you say earlier that the reason they might call off church service would be... 1) Take advantage of the situation and sleep in if they want to. Then you contradict yourself by saying I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that the reason they called it off is so that everyone can "lay around the house" instead of having a service.

Of course it is a big deal! Any time a Local Church which has been given a commission from Christ decides tp close their services on the Lord's Day. Living4Him did give some valid reasons why they might not have service and there are valid reasons such as a Ice Storm, Hurricane or even joining another Church in worship BUT it is always a Big Deal in that a local Church should have a Love and feel an obligation to assemble and worship the Holy Trinity.

Of course they can but a Church is not like going to a ball game or movie theater. There are obligations Church members have to their local church. To deny this is too teach Papacy of the Believer as opposed to the Priesthood of the Believer.

The Lord's Day is meant to spend quality time with the assembled people of God as well as their family and most important our love for and worship of Christ is to supercede even that of family. I still don't comprehend your concept of the Church in that it seems to be a extrtemist version of Universal Church with no concept of commitment to the local Church.

 

There is more going on here that we don't know about. If the Pastor is purposefully going on vacation, it may be a church that does not believe in celebrating "Easter", but does celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. Our old pastor always made a point of referring to Easter as "Resurrection Sunday" so as not to associate with the pagan roots of the holiday. This could be the case. He doesn't want to celebrate Easter because he wants to take a stand against what goes with it.
The person starting this thread knows why the Pastor is going on vacation, and knew the topic would be controversial, and wanted to see what the responses would be.

 

Because the local church is to be teaching Scripture regularly. And you are to be learning to study the Scripture on your own. Acts 17 tells us that this was possible. Other passages in the epistle indicate that it was also possible.

But remember that truth is the truth whether it is accepted or not. The fact that some have rejected the Scripture does not compromise the authority of the Scripture. It only places those who reject it under its condemnation.

 

I used to be a church employee. I got every weekend and holiday off, with the exception of weekends and holidays.

BTW, isn't there an associate pastor who does services in the absence of a senior pastor? That aside, you'd think the two days a pastor WOULDN'T go on vacation is Christmas and Easter. But I don't find fault with that as I do with a pastor cancelling church for a vacation.

 

Seems to me that most responding have laid the responsibility of having "church" on a single man and thereby look on in horror when a local church cancels a "service" because "The Pastor" will be out of town. If the local church functioned biblically, there wouldn't be a problem.

Let me also state that we as men are consistently condemning others according to our traditions, standards, and opinions.

 

Kiffin,

I said...

And you said...

Thats not even close to being true. Why would missing one service cause the fellowhip to collapse?

And we dont know the entire reason why. We know the pastor is going to be on vacation that week. As for why they dont just ask one of the members to speak that day, we dont know the reason for that. All I am saying is that to decide not to have a service on a particular Sunday is not a big deal.

Everyone will survive, the world with keep spinning, and that fellowship will continue doing Gods work.

I said...

And you said...

Thats not at all what I said.

I said that for some reason they called off the serive, but that as a result of that situation some people who want to attend a service that day can simply attend another fellowship somewhere, and others might decide to sleep in and take that Sunday off.

I am not contradicting myself at all. I never said that the reason they canceled one service is so that everyone can sleep in that day.

Why would they do it for that reason? Any christian is free to miss a service because they want to sleep in any time they want to.

And that is not a big deal, either.

My goodness, do you believe that God gets up every Sunday morning and takes attendance like in "homeroom" in high school? And if someone attends a different fellowship somewhere one weekend do you think God is going to think "What are you doing in this building?! You should be in that other building!"?

Its no big deal to miss a service! It becomes a big deal to fall out and forsake assembling ourselves with other believers.

Nobody is suggesting that anyone do that.

I said...

And you said...

The "Lords day" is every day. I wake up every day of my life with the attitude that... "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it."

You are absolutly correct that we as the body of Christ have been given the commision to go into all the world and preach the gospel, teach the scriptures, "build each other help", love one another, make disciples, and be "salt" and "light" in the midst of a lost and dark world.

And of course I agree completly with you that we who are born of the Spirit should be actively involved in the life and ministry of a good new testament fellowship.

Where do you find in the scriptures... "and you better be sitting in one of my buildings every single Sunday, grrr!"

And who has ever said that this fellowship is forsaking their commission to do those things? All that has been said is that they are going to...skip...one...Sunday.

I will say this...if that were my fellowship, and the pastor suggested we skip a Sunday, and we were all sitting there discussion what we should do, I would probably say "Why dont we ask the youth minister to give a message?" or "Why dont we ask Bob or Phil to speak?" or "I'll give a message if you want me to", but if the decision was to miss a service it would not be a big deal for me.

As I said, our fellowship called either the morning or evening service off on easter 3 or so years ago, and we just visited my in laws church that day. We were blessed at that service...but the next sunday were were back with our church and everything was fine.

God bless,

Mike

 

Hey, T2U, chill a little!!

Forgive me if you took my post in a way other than I had intended it. It did not mean to make it sound like you had ulterior motives, only that you were looking to hear a good debate by Baptists about Baptists. It is an interesting topic, especially since some Fundamentalist Baptists do have a problem with some of the roots of the Easter holiday.

I apologise again for assuming you knew the "rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say. From this end of the internet it sounded like there was more we didn't know. You are right, your pastor friend may do whatever he likes on Easter. I was just trying to understand if it was a matter of some personal conviction that he would choose to go away on Easter. You must admit, it is atypical. I personally have never known of any Christian church not having some form of celebration on Easter Sunday. However, I don't know all Christian churches. God bless him, whatever he does. It is between him, God and his congregation.