Some Church Members Have Lost Their Minds

Jesus’s greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and also to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). Paul’s exhortation to the church at Philippi was that if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And what you have learned and received and heard and seen in him – practice those things (Phil 4:8-9).

Congregants who use their minds are able to approach church relationships and ministries with humility, discernment, and grace without compromising knowledge, insight, reason, creativity, inquiry, doubt, and imagination.

We could all learn from the Jews who believe the Sabbath begins at sundown the night before. Then the activities and things with which we fill our minds (including social media and opinion journalism) before we gather could better frame our attitudes as we gather. What we do, whom we spend our time with, what we watch, and what we think about can negatively or positively influence our relationships as we gather.

My daughter was five years old the first time our family vacationed at Walt Disney World. After months of planning and days of travel, the final preparations for and anticipation of the first day at Magic Kingdom was almost too much excitement for her to contain.

Like a firefighter, she selected and laid out her clothes the night before so she could jump into them the next morning. Sleep eluded her with the anticipation of what was to come. She awakened early, quickly dressed, and inhaled breakfast so she would be ready to depart hours before the park even opened.

All conversation traveling from our resort to the park entrance centered on what she would observe, experience, eat, participate in, enjoy, and then take home at the end of the day. She had been thinking about it, dreaming of it, and planning, preparing, and longing for it. Her mind was so filled with it she couldn’t contain the anticipation.

If loving God and loving others is not something with which we fill our minds when we gather together as a church, then what we do as we gather becomes self-serving. Until we think about it, consider it, process it, meditate on it, study it, and learn how to get better at it before we gather, we’ll have a hard time practicing it when we gather.

This post is adapted from David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2020).