Why are some churches canceling worship for "sabbath"?

Over the last year I have noticed what appears to be a growing trend across the American church landscape of churches cancelling Sunday worship periodically throughout the year and calling them “Sabbath Sundays”. This phenomenon has even reached the city I live in. One time last year we had two young women who I knew visit our church on Sunday, and when I inquired to what brought them that day, they told me their church was observing a Sabbath and had canceled services. This led me to start reflecting on what was going on, and paying closer to attention to the churches that are engaging in this practice.

At first glance, it would appear that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of Sabbath and rest. It would be easy to point to the theological issues that come with not understanding Christ as our sabbath rest, the church as an embassy of the coming kingdom, and the vital nature of the Lord’s Supper for pointing us to the future wedding supper of the Lamb. And while there are almost certainly theological misunderstandings at play here, especially for parishioners who don’t bat an eye at these decisions, I believe that the real issue is actually ecclesiological.

Ecclesiology shapes churches

Ecclesiology is a branch of theology, in particular our theology of the church. Every church has ecclesiology, and this particular theological reflection will shape the how, the why, and the what of a church’s life. As I have begun observing this trend of cancelling worship, I have noticed a major common denominator: production value. I have yet to see Pastor Jim Bob’s Bible Fellowship, 1st Street Presbyterian, St Jude’s Catholic Parish, (or any mid to small size church for that matter) cancel worship for “Sabbath”. So far, without fail, the churches I see cancelling are ones that are running a heavily programatic, entertainment-as-church playbook. I believe that this also explains the “when”, as these cancelled services are occurring over holiday weekends, and during the summer, when volunteers are inevitably on vacation. This of course begs a few questions, the first being “What is the bare minimum required for a church to conduct worship, and is it worth it to simply do that?”. I had to wrestle through this very question in the early years of church planting. I kid you not when I say that there were Sundays where we conducted full blown covenant renewal worship services with 8 people in the room, and 4 of them were children. This is of course not very visually stunning, and can be discouraging at times, but it caused us all to dig deep into our theology of the church and worship. Did our worship matter any less to God because so few people were in the room? No. Did the 8 people in the room need to have their sins forgiven and hear the word preached and sing to the Lord and receive from His table any less because we had a smaller group? Not at all.

We are seeing a Y form in the metaphorical road in American churches. One path leads to ever increasing production value to try and capture a generation of worshippers whose minds have been fried by social media’s dopamine superhighway. The other path is a recovery of the church’s tried and true worship. A liturgical life. Word and Sacrament. Prayer. Slow, quiet parish life and pastoral care.

This second path is not the antithesis of seeker sensitivity either. Generations Z and A are seeking the Lord. But they are searching for something solid, something ancient, something older than their own memory. This is a large reason for the exodus to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches amongst young men in particular. One of my greatest goals in ministry is to help these generations realize and experience that church can be historically informed without making the massive theological compromises required to join a RC or EO church.

In the end, this does circle all the way back to a theology of Sabbath. Christ’s church can exist underground or in cathedrals, but no matter where it is found the substance remains the same. Christ is that substance, and in Christ we have our rest. The blessed simplicity of the sacramental life will feel like a warm nap for those who have been striving for attention for so long.

Go to church, forgive your neighbor, worship Christ, and rest in the riches of His grace.

God bless you