When is it appropriate to cancel church or substitue other activities for church?

I have heard that too... but if people come solely out of habit.. they need a heart change..

A heart change will show up in actions..
But actions will never change the heart.

Many people are coerced, made to feel guilty, or do things out of habit because they are told to do so. In this case they are following the actions and suggestions of others...
Many believe that by changing their actions, they can change their hearts...

This is backwards...

Instead of concentrating on changing behaviors in Christians... like church attendance, Bible Reading, prayer, faithfulness, etc

We should be concentrating on changing their hearts... then the actions will follow.

A person can do everything their pastor says to do.. and people will think that person is a great Christian, and still go to Hell with an unchanged heart.

But if a person's heart changes, his actions will show up...

I think we have done things backward.
Most churches concentrate on changing behavior... instead of changing hearts.

And this is why these type questions are even needed...
We start believing that our habits are holy because we have always done it this way.. and when someone suggests something out of our norm, we automatically think it is evil because we never done it that way.

What would be wrong with a church cancelling all services at it's building and meeting at a city park on Sunday, divide up and go on visitation?
(After all, 10:00 on a Sunday morning is a great time to find those who do not attend church elsewhere.)

NOTHING... the church is still having church!... It is just doing evangelism instead of worship.
In fact.. it would be a church "SERVICE"

What we call "Services" are really not.. the church doesn't serve until it is outside it's four walls...

I have thought about this for a few yrs now.. and this concept that we are only a church inside our buildings is what has weakened our churches...

The early church didn't have buildings.. .carpet, furnaces, or other material things.. they had each other and God.

And they knew what it was to serve God.

But now we have places set aside (pigeon holed) where we worship.
No wonder the world wants to keep our worship confined to the church building.. .that's the way we have been acting for many yrs now..

OK.. That's my rant.
I'm done for now (for this post) LOL

 

It would cost a lot less. But they did meet in homes and synagogues. That is why so many are going to the home church deal. You do away with the material cost and the pay for a pastor and staff, there would be no cost to get the gospel out from that church. As I've said , my wife comes from a group of small baptist churches in Ky., that don't have paid pastor or staff, they say it works well.

They sure did, you are sounding like my father. He never wanted to go to church, he didn't care for pastors. But the early church did meet somewhere and if from reading the NT, services must have been rather long.

You are so correct, as Christians we should be in a worship and prayer mood 24/7. The early church did too, and if I recall correctly Paul got help for the church at Jerusalem. I always looked at church services as the place we, believers are trained and prayed to go out into the streets and work places to share the good news with the lost.