CHURCH ATTENDANCE AT A MAXIMUM FOR EASTER

There are many churches of many denominations in the area at which I live. It's impossible to drive for 5 minutes without passing a Christian church.

And, as usual, on Easter all the church parking lots were filled. Most churches had to make, even double, their seating capacity. So many souls came to give thanks to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for Jesus' resurrection and the Father's plan of salvation.

My question????????????? With double the attendance at Easter services, where do those who only worship at Easter and Christmas disappear to for the rest of the year. Why only Easter and Christmas worship, no time, better things to do, or no interest?

Too many preachers are using sales tactics and not preaching the straight Gospel

Why do you want them there everyday Arthur?
Maybe people have a million different reasons we don’t know about, one of which might be that they don’t like “The Church” as many members here in this forum for example.

The attendence is higher during Easter and Christmas because family is visiting and the whole family goes to service as a group. However this phenomena must only occur in the suburbs and the country. Usually churches in the city are more empty during the holidays because no one is in town.

I especially love my Christian brothers and sisters, those beautiful people earnestly trying to learn and follow God's word. But I also find it very difficult to listen to sermons that only speak part of the truth.

I have been known to sometimes enjoy the occasional fellowship while avoiding the "service". I'm sure some pastors dislike my selection. It does feel a little sneaky!

For my own sanity I choose to spent time every day reading, learning and studying God's word outside the modern western church. I encourage no one else to follow my path but also cannot follow yours.

The simple answer is that their experience of God has fallen short of that which leads them to seek God before all else. The God who is all desirable is not all desired by them.

It makes logical sense to me why Catholics believe people of other religions go to Heaven. All one has to do is look at this issue from a Catholic perspective. Catholics believe Protestants are lost for various reasons but are able to enter Heaven. By the same logic, people of other religions are similar to Protestants but just a bit more lost. This is just a matter of degree to them. Catholics consider the Catholic Church the true embodiment of Christ, and the Protestants and other religions do not belong/are not baptized into this.

Easter is Resurrection Sunday. It's been a long time since I went to a Sunrise Service, in Renton Washington, which is a larger incorporated city south of Seattle where the Boeing Hangars are. The Catholic Easter service focuses on the triumphal entry, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed donkey, which remembers the faith of the animal's owner, who gave it to the disciples without knowing the mystery of the coming crucifixion and destruction of the temple, giving up his pack animal because "the master has need of it". What few modern Christians remember is that the Roman Church, which keeps Sunday as the Sabbath, also observes a day called Holy Saturday, which remembers the day that Jesus spent dead in Arimathea's tomb. It's a part of the liturgical year, so that when two protestants (for example, a Baptist and a Seventh Day Adventist) get together to debate the Day of the week Sabbath falls on, the meaning of rest in the literal Life of Christ falls down that hole. Jesus rested on the Seventh Day of the Calander week (Saturday is the Biblical Sabbath). But Rome's liturgical Christian year remembers the Sabbath kept by Jesus on Holy Sabbath, a High Alter Holiday falling on the day after Good Friday.

I dont get to church this easter
usually family is over and we have too many things on (family is not christian or church goers) however we still have a passover meal lol

So church attendance is neither here nor there for me. I will attend church all other days of the week when I can, I actually like going when not many people are there so Tuesdays and Thursdays can be good days for me.

Then I can tidy up the shelves in the church library and I dont get asked 'am I stil, working'. On sundays when I get asked this question and look at them blankly because Sunday is usually my day off and I dont want to work on Sunday. Or even go anywhere. It does cost petrol to go places you know. Sometimes I like to stay home and rest, and I have my Bible so, does not going to church make me any less of a Christian?

I am a Christian all other days of the week even when I am not at church.

Hey Rose !

Okay so let’s take this specific church as an example which sounds like you personally liked and others liked.
Why do you think other people would come in rarely instead of regularly?

Personally I don’t know the answer to this and it’s also not very important to me since every experience varies.
My church is always full 3 times a week every week and people say a lot of things here in this forum about everything which doesn’t match my reality but hey it’s a fun thing to chat about.

So why did the people at your church show up occasionally and
Why is this full attendance important to you?


God bless you Rose!

You know in my younger years I use to think a full church was important, until I got into evangelism and realized how many are sitting in full churches that don't know the basics of the Gospel. I was in a church once where three older ladies put up their hands to ask Christ into their lives. They were sisters and they said the pastor in the church they attend had never preached on salvation. So a full church doesn't mean what we think it does.

I do think since COVID many of the older folks have decided to stay home and watch sermons on tv. Blessings on you too Eli !!

I see. So this is a new problem then, due to covid.
Well, I hope you are vaccinated.

As Keith Green said, "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger."
While we need fellowship with each other, I think the "gotta go to church" mentality can be too much. Love my pastor but he does the same thing. Always saying that our gifts should be used to serve in the church. He doesn't seem to consider that we can use our gifts outside of the physical church building. The church is the saints...not a building where we sit down in a pew for a couple hours a week.

Anyway, totally agree with you Lanolin. We're followers of Christ all week long, not just Sundays.

The gifts were given for the edifying of the body of Christ. It's hard to do that if you are not in the presence of the body.

Matthew 18:20 "Where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.”

Certainly we can minister our gifts in small groups. But believers should regularly meet with a local body of believers. Unless 2 or 3 possess all the gifts, not to meet regularly with the body of Christ lessens the body as well as the individuals.

Magenta, you say, " "Where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them."

Just as importantly, Jesus founded His Church, so He must have thought it was important.

Yet there are so many on this thread that don't want to gather in Jesus' Name, to be with Him, and don't think Jesus' Church is important in their Christian lives.