for your consideration
The Festival
We invite them in thinking that perhaps some will accept
Him. As children enjoy the annual neighborhood festival some parents bring
them back to Sunday school for a time.
They have no objection to church. In fact most parents
have been looking for something the family can do together that does not
take up too much time. Parents often attend adult Sunday School classes
while the children are occupied. Sometimes they even stay after for the
morning worship service if they have nothing else to do or nothing planned.
It is an enjoyable pivot to lunch.
But their motivation is wrong. Church can never be
what ever time is left.
It must be a priority because societal customs are strong, with kids sports
and parties on weekends and the NFL on Sundays. Over time they attend less
regularly and eventually simply cease to come1.
They came for a festival2.
And though the Sunday and midweek services are made enjoyable, the festival
is not weekly. Christianity is the serious business of life, equipping the
sincere for victory in this present world. The church is where we renew our
minds continually3.
Perhaps God’s church does not grow from recruitment
of those from without but only from the increase of Godly offspring4.
1. 1 John 2:19
(NIV)
19
They went out from us, but they did not
really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have
remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_festival
A harvest festival is an annual celebration that occurs
around the time of the main harvest of a given region. Given the differences
in climate and crops around the world, harvest festivals can be found at
various times at different places. Harvest festivals typically feature
feasting, both family and public, with foods that are drawn from crops that
come to maturity around the time of the festival. Ample food and freedom
from the necessity to work in the fields are two central features of harvest
festivals: eating, merriment, contests, music and romance are common
features of harvest festivals around the world.
3.Ephesians 4:22-31
(KJV)
22 That ye put off
concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts;
23
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
25
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every
man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the
sun go down upon your wrath:
27
Neither give place to the devil.
28
Let him that stole steal no more: but
rather let him labour, working with his
hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed
out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it
may minister grace unto the hearers.
30
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are
sealed unto the day of redemption.
31
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour,
and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
4.Malachi
2:15 (NIV)
15 Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and
spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So
guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your
youth.
/SS/QBstores |