A Different Look at Attendance
It would be impossible for me to count how many times I have heard, read, or made the following comparison, but, maybe in this article, we can examine it from a different angle.
For years, people have noted that, no matter the weather or almost any other factor, a football stadium on Saturday or Sunday will be filled, yet people will use many factors to not fill a church pew for worship on Sunday.
Over the years, I have heard that said (and said it myself) probably hundreds of times. Nearly always, the “reason” given has to do with dedication. We are told that people are more dedicated to their team than their congregation or to their football traditions than their worship practices.
I’m not suggesting that is a bad way to look at it. But let me offer an alternative. It is similar, but comes at this from a different angle.
Maybe a huge reason people will stand in rain or snow to watch a game for 3 hours, but will not walk across a parking lot through the rain to come to worship comes down to another word:
Investment.
People feel invested in that game. After all, they are invested in the success of the team. They have invested money in buying tickets, paying for parking, and more. They have invested time–in some cases, an entire weekend–to go to the place where the game is.
Now, though the weather might be awful or the temperature sink to below freezing, they feel so invested that they will do anything–from buying warmer clothes to drinking multiple hot chocolates–to be there and to “make good” on their investment.
But, when Sunday morning rolls around and it’s 29 degrees and there is a chance of flurries? Too many of those same people are not invested enough in the worship and work of the Lord to “risk” getting out. They have not invested enough into their spiritual lives of their heart and mind and soul to walk through some showers with an umbrella into a warm, dry building.
In other words, their heart is following their treasure. Sound familiar?
Maybe we need some more investment in the things of God. Maybe we need to think the time and money we will spend and the energies we will expend to do things of this earth we enjoy (sports, shopping, etc.). And maybe we need to rethink our investment in the eternal kingdom of God, so that we don’t end up putting more effort into the pursuits of the world than we do into the praise of our King.
AUTHOR: Adam Faughn
