Is It a Sin to Be Late for Church?

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Alright Tim, the question for today's episode is, is being late to church a sin issue?

I mean if someone was routinely 10 minutes late to church, then probably. There's probably an issue there.

Well yeah, the reason we're talking about this to begin with, for those of you who don't know,

J .D. Greer recently posted a clip from a sermon that he was teaching, and in this clip he's basically calling out people within his congregation who were routinely coming in 10 minutes late, leaving 5 minutes early, with the assumption being they're leaving early to go try and beat the traffic, essentially, to get out of there without getting in the traffic jam, you know, and go eat lunch sooner.

And so he put this clip out, essentially calling them out saying, hey, this is wrong, what you're doing is wrong, and you're not treating the church correctly, and when people come along and they critique the church saying that you're unloving, that we're just a big production, and we're just a big show, you're the problem, essentially.

And so he had a lot of people respond to that in a lot of different ways. I think you had a lot of people who were coming along saying, well hey, maybe they're not the only problem.

You know, when it comes to the production side of things, because,

I mean, literally in your video, right after you say people think we're just a big production, you know, it cuts to your second camera, you know, that's showing a different angle of you.

So, like, obviously there is some kind of production going on, like, whatever you want to call it, that is happening.

So maybe it's not only the people leaving early. But then you did have other people coming along who were essentially saying, hey,

J .D. Greer, you're wrong, because you can't just expect everyone to be there on time to the service.

I mean, what about disabled people? What about people who work before or after the church service?

What about single moms? You have all these kind of whatabouts that people would bring up as reasons for people to be consistently late, which, you know,

I think that's a big point of distinction here, is we're not talking about the person who is, you know, they come to church 52 times a year on Sunday, and they're late a handful of times throughout the year.

We're not talking about that person, because I don't, based on the clip, it didn't sound like J .D. Greer was talking about that person.

It sounded like he was talking about the person who is consistently, you know, coming in late, leaving early.

Yeah, the people who are strategically late, right? That's the people he's talking about. So they're strategically getting there 10 minutes early, and then they're strategically, well, at the very least, they're strategically leaving 10 minutes, you know, 5 or 10 minutes late.

Right, right. So the question is, is that person committing some kind of sin?

And J .D. Greer, you know, at least initially, according to that clip, it sounds like he's asserting, you know,

I don't know if he's willing to take it to, like, sin issue, but he's at least willing, you know, he's confronting them over it.

And so that's why we're asking this question, and especially because so many people, I mean, you even posted about it, and so many people were coming back saying, these are totally legitimate reasons to be late or to leave early, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's a weird thing to talk about this kind of subject, so I really have no interest in defending J .D. Greer about anything, right?

So this isn't, there's no effort being made here to defend him with anything. I mean, in fact,

I mean, I think the production comments probably demonstrate a remarkable lack of self -awareness about his whole ministry.

So we'll just leave that alone there for a second. But I mean, if you just, I mean, just isolating the, you know, the disputed point in question, ignoring the, you know, whether or not he's the right person to address the kind of issue that he's addressing with that.

I mean, certainly there is a type of person who, particularly going to big churches, there is a type of person who will come strategically 10 minutes late.

And so, you know, people were commenting on that, and some of the reasons they thought that people would strategically come 10 minutes late were because they have a disability or social anxiety, right?

Because they're so anxious, they don't want to talk to anyone. And they thought that that was a permissible reason to get to church 10 minutes late every week, because you're sinfully anxious, you know, in talking to people.

But so they thought that was a reason, and then, you know, they're working on Sunday, and it's just like,

I don't, you know, I made a decision early on in my life to never work on Sunday for just that reason, so that I didn't have to even think about something along those lines.

And then, you know, the idea of being a single mother, they brought up all the, you know, the pull your heart, you know, tug on your heartstring kind of categories if you're a single mother or you're disabled or whatever.

But I mean, none of those really make any sense. I mean, like the idea of having to be at, like of routinely arriving to church 10 minutes late because you're disabled.

I mean, that's just a scheduling problem. I know that most people, they don't think about these things with logic.

They think about these things related to emotion or whatever. But I mean, if you're thinking about like a disabled person, if a disabled person is routinely able to get to church 10 minutes late, then they could figure out how to routinely get to church.

It's just a math problem at that point, right? It's just a simple math problem at that point. It's just like, it's very simple. You just start getting ready 20 minutes earlier, and then you will get there 20 minutes.

You'll get there 10 minutes earlier instead of 10 minutes late. So I mean, I think there's a certain kind of person who is unable to understand these kind of things, and typically that kind of person is of a certain gender.

But yeah, I mean, like what you're talking about when you're talking about routinely getting to church late,

I mean, you are talking about just simple math problems there and just simple issues of being responsible. And if there's reasons that you're not wanting to get there late because of your social anxiety or something like that, the problem is that you really are just, you don't understand what the church is and what your responsibilities are to your fellow church members.

And so you're trying to avoid social interactions with people. And you are,

I mean, you actually are treating the church like a production or just like an event. You're not treating it as a gathering of family members coming together to worship

God together and to minister to one another and to build one another up. And so, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of problems with that.

And there is a certain kind of person who does that kind of thing, particularly in megachurch culture. That kind of thing is very common in megachurch kind of culture where you slip in, hope no one notices you, and you leave and you say, hey,

I did my part and now I'm gone. And yeah, a lot of that is related to trying to beat traffic on the end of it because you have a megachurch and a big crowd and it takes a long time and you're trying to get a head start on the lunch break and everything else.

And yeah, I mean, that obviously shows misplaced priorities, and that's obviously not a good thing. This shouldn't even be remotely controversial.

So, but what is the, like, where is the sin coming from exactly?

Because it's not like there's a Bible verse that says, you know, thou shalt be at church at 9 .30

on the dot, you know, or whatever time. So, where exactly is the, like, sin issue coming up in all of this?

Well, a lot of this is just related to letting your yes be yes and your no be no. You know, so just if, so part of it's just a simple matter of integrity, doing what you say you're going to do in that way.

I mean, if your leaders tell you to assemble, you're going to assemble at a particular time, then, you know, you do have

Hebrews 13 that speaks into this kind of thing. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they will keep and watch over your souls as those who are given account.

So, I mean, it is very disrespectful just, like, to your leaders at that point. I know that we don't really think about the church member as having functionally any responsibility to their leaders at all, right?

Yeah, yeah. But then, like, the idea that your church members tell you we're going to meet at this time and then you routinely get there late, you're really not doing what they're saying.

You know, and this is an area where they have authority to tell you what time the assembly is going to be, right? So, this isn't like they're twisting your arm and asking you to, you know, sell all your property or something like that, or give you their bank statements.

I mean, there's nothing tyrannical that's happening at that point. So, I mean, at a bare minimum, I mean, this is just, like, this is just simple integrity.

I mean, would you get, you know, maybe a lot of people would. They would just get to their job 10 minutes late and, you know, every single day.

And, I mean, you can do that. You just get a bad reputation. And so, a lot of this is just, like, simple being responsible, simple integrity kind of issues.

But, I mean, there's a lot more to it than that. I mean, I know that my wife and I, we try to get to church about 30 minutes early every week, one, so that we can have integrity to get there on time, right?

Yeah, like if something bad happens, then you've got built -in time to kind of, you might still make it on time, you know, like when the service starts, if something unexpected happened.

And by doing that, I mean, I will say that, hey, like, by trying to get there 30 minutes early for the sake of timeliness,

I mean, we've been going to the church we've been going to for four years now.

I mean, four years now. I don't think we've ever been late once. My wife was accidentally late one time because I was sick.

And I wasn't able to be the taskmaster behind the scenes, like telling them, you know, what to do because I was a little bit out of it, you know?

But, I mean, like, we've literally, I don't think we've ever been late once. I mean, like, when you have a bad day or when things don't go as planned, instead of getting there 30 minutes early, you get there, you know, 20 minutes early or 15 minutes early or, you know, gasp, 10 minutes early.

Like, when we're really pushing it, we get there 10 minutes early, you know? And there have been some times where things like that have happened.

But, I mean, if you just plan for, like, you plan for 30 minutes early, you'll get there.

I mean, you won't be worried about these kind of things. Like, we're never worried about getting there on time. We're always, you know, early. But, I mean, part of it, so, but why would you do that kind of thing beyond just trying to get there on time?

I think you have 38 one another commands, admonish one another, exhort one another, correct one another, rebuke one another, love one another, greet one another, welcome one another.

Like, you have all these commands in the Bible, these 38 one another commands. You have to figure out how to love the people that you have, get to know these people, care about these people, figure out what's going on in their life.

I mean, there's, I mean, you're not really going to have many opportunities to talk to them and interact with them in the service itself.

So you might want to take advantage of opportunities where you're all gathered together in the same kind of place in order to minister to each other and build one another up.

And so, I think a lot of people for this kind of, like, a lot of people are just, they just haven't really read the

Bible and seen all the commands that the Bible, that God gives the church to itself, you know, all these one another commands.

And so they're not even factoring those kind of things in that, hey, I have a real responsibility to do all these things. So I might want to factor in the time to do it for sure.

Yeah, which makes sense too if you think about it because there are so many people who, they look at church as sort of this just like thing that you've got to just check off, you know, and then if you show up and maybe you sing a song and, you know, maybe you miss the first two and you sing the third, you know, half of the third one or something and then you listen to the message and then, you know, you try and dip out right at the end.

They view that as like, hey, I'm being faithful to what I've been called to do.

But then that same person is the kind of person who looks at church as just kind of this burden that they're taking on when the reality is,

I mean, because of those 38 one another commands, I mean, the church is a huge blessing to all of the people who are a part of it, right?

Yeah, I mean, definitely so. I mean, and this may be a selling point for smaller churches over big churches because,

I mean, the bigger the church you are, the larger, the easier it is to get lost in the crowd and the easier it is for these dynamics to actually happen where you can just go to the same church for years and years and years and functionally never know anyone because,

I mean, if you're going to a church with thousands and thousands of people in it, you're going to pick a seat and, you know, you might, there's no guarantee that you're going to ever even talk to the same person that you sat by at that one time over the course of the next year even.

And so it really is, I think this is a problem that's much more pronounced in bigger churches than in smaller churches in general to where, you know, there's a lot more accountability built in with smaller churches and there's a lot more blessing that comes from going to a church where you know that you're going to actually see these same people over and over and over again and interact with these same people over and over and over again.

And then it really does encourage a lot more responsibility on your end and there's a lot more blessings, I think, that come from that in general to where these kind of things are problems but then there are more problems in,

I think, megachurch culture in general. But, I mean, I think people, to your point, they, um, they, it's, um, like, there is a certain kind of, you know, quote -unquote

Christian who refuses to accept that the Bible actually has any moral binding commands on them at all.

Except for maybe like, hey, don't murder people or something, you know. That's about the extent of it, you know.

So they refuse to kind of accept any kind of moral binding commands at all and then when you get to, like, you know, the kind of person who's going to argue with this is really probably the kind of person who's going to argue that you don't even have to go to church in general unless it helps you, you know.

So they're the kind of person in general who feels like they can worship God better in nature in general. So then, you know, then when it's like, hey,

I'm actually going to church, they feel like they're doing God a favor or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

They've done a super, you know, erogatory act or something like that, an act of super -erogation, you know, where they've gone above and beyond the call of duty to go to church, you know.

And if they go, I mean, that's if they go on a regular basis, you know. Like, if they go once, they feel like they've done something remarkable.

But if they go on a regular basis, it's like, man, super -Christian, you go all the time. You know, and then this is like, hey, and that's not good enough for you?

You expect me to get there early even and talk to people? I feel like we should, you know, insert one of those

Greta Thunberg, how dare you? Yeah, I mean, so then the idea that you would, you know, like, that's not even good enough.

You mean going to church is not good enough? Like, I have to get there early? I have to go to the whole service?

You know, I can't dip out, you know, at the end if I have better things to do or whatever? So there is a kind of person who's going to be scandalized by all that, and then there is a kind of person who's going to take offense on behalf of single mothers and disabled and disabled people and everything else.

It's just like, hey, I don't really know what to tell you. This is just a simple discipline problem. Yeah. If you can figure out how to every week go to church 10 minutes late, you can figure out how to every week go to church 10 minutes early.

It's not that hard. It's very simple. All you do is just set your starting time, like, here's where we start getting ready.

If you fail, then take your starting time, move it back 10 minutes the next week, try again, right?

If you keep on failing, keep on moving it back, you know? Yeah. And come up with,

I mean, it's very simple. We have to get to church at 1030, so I want our kids to be in the van at 930.

That's my drop -dead date. Drop -dead time. You need to be in the van at 930.

That means we're going to have an hour to get there. So that's planning for any kind of crazy scenario short of a flat tire or something like that.

And for the most part, you're not going to get it. So, I mean, if you want to get there on time, you can. It's not that hard.

And you just start your routine earlier and figure out what the steps are, but it shouldn't be that hard.

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