The Lord has recently used both carrot and stick conversations to get me thinking about Sunday-morning worship participation. I’ll start with the “stick” and get to the “carrot” next week.

This started in a meeting with other pastors from around town with one lamenting that a decent percentage of his congregation shows up only once or twice a month. Most of us in the meeting could relate, and so we started brainstorming what to do about it. Initially the thinking was about how we can craft “can’t-miss” worship services. But then one pastor said that while we should do the work of crafting the best worship services possible, we also need to remind people that if you are a Christian, Sunday is the “LORD’s day—not lords day.” Do you feel the stick?

Sunday is God’s day in a very possessive sense. There are many lords, plural sense, who want to lay claim to that day. Lords like self, family, work, sports and so on. But if we are Christians, we deny their claim on the day and affirm the LORD’s. It is His day, and on His day, we are commanded to both rest and worship.

Next week I’ll dig into why this is such a good thing, but for now, remember Sunday is the LORD’s day, and he wants you in corporate worship.