Sunday morning is an inconvenient time for church services because people are busy shopping and doing DIY, the Church of England has admitted.
Worshippers are increasingly turning their backs on the centuries-old practice of attending worship on Sundays because of other leisure and social “commitments”, it said.
The admission came alongside new figures showing that attendances at midweek services in cathedrals have doubled in a decade while numbers in the pews in parishes on Sundays continue to fall.
The Dean of Lichfield, the Very Reverend Adrian Dorber, said many people still crave quiet reflection, but are seeking out less “pressurised” times in the week to worship than Sunday mornings.
Don’t know if that is that radical a concept. Many Catholics here go to Mass on Saturday afternoon, to the point where at one church near where we live hires an off-duty policeman to help direct traffic after Mass. They get more folks on Saturday afternoon than on Sunday mornings.
Meanwhile, on a planet far far away, Rowan Williams was asked whether the Church of England had a case to make for keeping Sunday special when it was proposed that major out of town stores and DIY outlets were pressing for Sunday trading laws to be changed. None whatever Oystermouth articulated before clamming up again on this subject.
Now everyone is busy shopping and doing their DIY on Sundays, and the Church of England is telling us that Sunday is occupied and we have to move our services to other times.
Go figure.
Wow. It would be pretty sad if the CoE caved to commercial pressures and stopped encourage people to come to worship on Sunday.
Popping into a church for a little quiet prayer mid-week is great. But it’s not the same as the gathering of believers coming together to worship and exalt Jesus.
May the Lord raise up those in the CoE who have the boldness to stand against the cultural zeitgeist.
If you are too busy to go to Sunday church due to shopping or, more likely Sunday children”s sports tells me something about your commitment to Christ. A a Christian you acknowledge that Christ died for your sins and skipping Church to go shopping and participate in sports says that you don’t give a d**n.