The Dangerous Act of Worship by Labberton Mark;Ortberg John;

Author:Labberton, Mark;Ortberg, John; [Labberton, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2009-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

Sabbath Practices: Saying No and Saying Yes

Many other books have been written on sabbath-keeping, and I encourage you to pursue those helpful resources as well as to use your own imagination, in community with others, to develop life-giving sabbath practices. Here I will simply discuss two closely related directions in sabbath-keeping.

One movement in sabbath practices is saying no—to our agendas, schedules, to our production drive, our sense of time and urgency, to the busyness and patterns of every day, to our power, to our cultivated blindness. We never like saying no to ourselves. That's part of the gift and challenge of sabbath-keeping. This self-denial can make the whole exercise seem negative and legalistic. Living in a culture where so many people take their laptops and cell phones on vacation only reinforces how far we are from grasping the meaning of rest. But legalistic self- denial is not the spirit in which God gives us the sabbath. Instead it's about stepping away from the ordinary in order to be restored.

Pastors, worship leaders and lay leaders often face a particular challenge in sabbath-keeping. When Sunday is the busiest and most demanding day of the week, it is hard to experience it as a source of rest. For such people, this may mean that sabbath-keeping has to occur some other way. Perhaps another day can be found during the week, apart from the "day off" for chores and errands. It should be a day of doing nothing but the most essential activities.

Even this may not always be possible. In my own experience, a busy Sunday can be marked by God's rest if I am internally prepared to enter it that way. If I go into a Sunday focused on my performance or just distracted in some way, I seldom find the gift of rest. But if I enter the day prepared for rest, I have found it possible to lead worship, and worship at the same time, as well as to find deep quiet.

Another practice has recently helped me claim the sabbath even on Sundays. The pastors on our staff now meet earlier than we used to so we can have a longer and more relaxed time of prayer with one another. Our love and affection for each other as well as our partnership in the gospel and in the day before us means that just sitting together in God's presence is quieting and renewing. We long to enter together into God's rest, and we share a mutual desire that each of us and each member of our congregation does so too.

This first movement in sabbath-keeping is about getting unhooked from the mesmerizing rhythms that set the patterns of daily life. We say no to those, and it's like being granted permission to live out of an entirely different mode than the one handed to us by our production-driven, multitasking, consumer-oriented culture. This mode is called God's rest. We desperately need it, particularly if we want to seek justice.

Sabbath practices are also invaluable in daily life.

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