Church on Sunday: optional, advisable or essential?

I've been musing for a few weeks on something that is increasingly bothering me and I can't quite put my finger on why.  I don't want to be thought legalistic - who would - but at the same time I'm aware of some growing trends in churches that long term worry me, so here goes.

Time is the ultimate pressure point of our lives.  There is seemingly so much to do and so little time to do it in.  And that means we cram our schedules fuller and fuller.  Weekends are rarely quiet times of the week, often we cram in everything we just haven't had time for during the week.  And increasingly this is as true of Sunday as Saturday.  Interestingly the Bible's pattern of rest and work is 1 day of rest, 6 of work.  Our pattern is supposedly 2 and 5, though I wonder how much that means we abandon 1 and 6 because we allow bleed across the weekend of 'work'.  Because I think as Christians a 1 and 6 pattern would make us really stand out and do us good.  Anyway that is a subject for another ramble

Over the last few years I've become increasingly worried about the way we are coming to think of church.  Now there are lots of good reasons to be away from church on a Sunday, as families move for work and become more geographically distant weekend visiting becomes a familial obligation, and a good loving practise.  Similarly with friends, sometimes a weekend with good friends can be an oasis of calm and a great time for reflection aside from the chaotic maelstrom of everyday life.  Such times of deliberately stepping out of life normal patterns is good and such relationships are restorative.  If our family and friends are Christians we attend church with them and that too is a blessing, seeing other believers, other fellowships and other ways of rejoicing in Christ and spurring one another on is good for us.

But here's my concern, so many other things now vie with Church for our time and commitment on Sundays.  We've had to make decisions regarding Sunday sports with the boys because they clash with church, not just church on Sunday morning but increasingly football is 2 nights a week, Saturday and Sunday morning and sometimes afternoon.  We've had to make similar decisions about Martial Arts and competing.  But it's not just sport.  Cubs, scouts and other uniformed organisations are increasingly running events over Sundays.  School play rehearsals and the like are often on Sundays.  Music groups, orchestra's, choirs etc also run so many things on Sundays.  Alongside that so many courses and events for adults run on Sundays, from sailing clubs and sewing groups, to singing groups.

Here is my concern, what are our actions conveying to our others about the importance of the gospel, our faith and the necessity or otherwise of church?  What does it reveal about the way we really think of God's people?  I am not legalistically arguing for slavish attendance at church every Sunday.  But I wonder if the trajectory we are on is doing more damage than we realise to our churches and especially to our children as they learn the lesson that church is just another optional activity to be fitted in when there are no higher priorities.  What will that mean for them as adults and as parents themselves?

I wonder if you asked your children how important they think church is on a scale of 1 to 10 what they would say and why?  What about what they would say about how important they conclude you think church is?  Is it a nice option, is it advisable or is it essential?  How do we really think about it and how does that show in our lives?

It's easy for us to drift into patterns of non-attendance before we realise it.  To be away this weekend visiting family, that weekend visiting friends, this week we are at Scout camp, and so on.  In part that's why we're running an afternoon service alongside our mornings.  So that for those who are away or visiting family there is a second opportunity to worship God and gather with his people to be both encouraged by others and an encouragement to others.

The New Testament pulls no punches we NEED church.  Yet I wonder if we really believe that?

A patchy picture

Its easy to look nationally and decry the state of Christianity in Britain, but it becomes even more pronounced when you look at it regionally. Its' bad enough if you look at raw data of bums on seats (or pews) Sunday by Sunday. The raw data is quite staggering. One study, which considered regular church attendance as being once a month, found that only 15% of the UK population are church goers.

More alarmingly a study by Tearfund in 2007 found that the dechurched - those who will not go to church because of past hurts and experiences but profess to be Christians - outnumbered regular church goers by 2:1.

The Tearfund study from 2007 makes predictions about church attendance and average age from its study. In 2010 6% of the population will attend church and will have an average age of 51, by 2015 that is 5.2% and 54, and by 2020 4.4% and 56.

The study concludes that there are 4 groups which the church in Britain struggles to reach: Christians, men, young people, and the poor.

They are alarming enough but when you know people in different parts of the country you see that national these figures mask some alarming trends. Take Yorkshire for instance where church attendance on any given Sunday is between 3-4%, whereas in the South East of England it tends to be a bit higher than the average of 6.8%. A similar pattern is established in terms of size of churches, vacant pastorates and I would guess age of population.

The North of England is becoming a mission field in our generation, and yet this seems to be going unrealised and uncommented upon. There are a number of reasons why I think that the North is facing the struggles it does:

1. Training is based in the South - good theological training is based in the South of England. This means placements are in the South and a relatively small proportion of graduates come up North after graduation.
2. Big churches are in the South - Many Christians want the encouragement and resources that come from going to a big church. And it is tremendously encouraging to go to a church with a few hundred as opposed to a few members, but is it missional in thinking to do so. In fact there are studies that show the optimum church size for evangelistic effectiveness is about 80 adults, and that big churches for all their resources are no more effective at reaching the lost.
3. Training roles - big churches also have bigger staff teams which means more training opportunities, assistant pastorates and the like which all equips people for ministry. Smaller churches in other parts of the country can't afford an assistant as well as a minister so there are fewer young pastors looking for churches in the North.
4. Apprenticeship/ministry trainees - Again because of size of churches and resources there are more of these in the South, and more attractive ones in the South. This means young men and women keen to serve go down South and many stay there.
5. Consumer society - we live in a world that encourages us to consume, consume, consume. That gets us reviewing and evaluating and picking what suits us best, or what we like best. We carry that over into church - we choose churches on the basis of our consumer habits not gospel thinking.
6. Perception - There is the perception that it is grim up north, at times it is. But the people are generous and friendly, their is an openness and warmth and above all distinctive gospel living is spotted and commented upon. It is a mission field awaiting missionaries who will live committed gospel lives.

Those are just 6 quick reasons off the top of my head, for some I have no evidence whatsoever bar conversations with church leaders across Yorkshire, Lancashire, the Midlands, London and the South. But they are alarming trends ones which should make us pray.