Those who know me well know that I am fond of Aristotle’s observation that when carpenters wish to straighten a bent board, they do not straighten it, they bend it the other way. This is perhaps because in most of my life as a leader I have been bending things too far the other way. The moderates have always been right to criticise the prophets for going too far, but that is, in the end, what gets us straight.

For most of my life I have attended Sunday morning church services. I can remember a season in my early teen years, a time when my home life was particularly tumultuous and my father had moved out. I felt some unvocalized need to be the man of the house, and that (at least to my adolescent mind) meant attending church. So I would go on Sundays, and take a spot in the back with the old ladies, standing up and sitting down when they did. I did this without ever really sensing that anything of consequence was happening; nothing, I guess, except some existential sense of shouldering responsibility. I attended these services pretty faithfully through the sketchy discipleship of my high school years, never really encountering God in a real way, but with an ever-growing awareness that He was in fact real, and there for the encountering.

From there I would find God in a new way in college, partially because of what felt like a new freedom to really choose him, and also because I had started going to a pentecostal worship service. I cannot overstate the impact those Sundays (and the occasional Wednesday) had on my spiritual formation; at that time I was ablaze with wonder and a kind of newness to all the things of God. I learned to pray with fervor, I learned to sing with all my heart, it felt revolutionary to be able to sing out at the top of my lungs and to still not be heard because everyone else was singing too. That experience is still a secret goal I have for all the worship environments I find myself in.

I was so caught up in the lush emotion of it all, and having come from an entirely cerebral view of God, this was itself a “bending of the board” the other way, which resulted in (I hope) a beautiful balance. The truth is, I was discipled by those services in what it meant to be zealous, to worship God with my heart, to articulate the gospel, and to call people to commitment. I learned that God still did miracles and that the Bible was a contemporary document, and I learned something too about the church: that we were this thing that when assembled, was powerful and beloved by God. I would faithfully attend one pentecostal church or another for the next 10 years… until I just couldn’t anymore. My frustration with those churches was in large part defined by a kind of Sunday-only version of Christianity. People came to their church buildings once a week and that became the prima facie experience of church, and this was an offense to me, and I think, to God as well).

I learned something too about the church: that we were this thing that when assembled, was powerful and beloved by God

Somewhere in these experiences, the Sunday service became for me an emblem of all that was wrong with church and western Christianity. Because Sunday morning was all that most Christians would do, it became inordinately important for churches and their leadership. Churches defined themselves by that service, its liturgy, its music, and the number of people attending. This is what church was for people, and that — on so many levels— is a betrayal of the New Testament vision of what the church should be. So we bent the board the other way. For a time we didn’t meet corporately for worship at all. Then we moved to meeting once a month. When it became apparent that the missionaries in our community were hungering for weekly gathering, I tried so hard to think of another time — any other time — than Sunday morning. It felt like guilt by association.

Reluctantly, I gave in. Our times together were always beautiful, often powerful, and in a very real sense, everything I had ever hoped they would be. God always seemed to be there, and something about a gathering of sold-out missionaries lends a tenor of desperation and authenticity to our time together. Still, I would belittle it, and the time we called the Crucible would always be degraded in the name of upgrading the microchurch. We did this because we didn’t want anyone to fall into that same trap as others have before, to think that Sunday morning Crucible attendance made them a part of the church. Mission had to be our priority. Still, in spite of myself, the Crucible remained both a place of divine grace and a place of deep discipleship. So many people have come into real liberating and transformational encounters with God at these (remarkably traditional) gatherings.

I have repented for minimizing the importance of these gatherings, but still we do not make them a point of emphasis. Just invest your life in a microchurch, we say, that is enough, that is all. These other things such as Crucible are totally optional — but of course everything is really optional in Christ. We are free. The question is, in our freedom, what should we choose? What is life-giving, and what builds us and conforms us more in the image of Jesus Christ?

I have been personally reconverted to the power and place of these gatherings, but still have not felt like commitment to them was necessary. Go as often as you need, I thought, or as often as you like — as long as you go once in a while. But here is my newest confounding revelation: the routine of it is good too.

If we do not gather out of a sense of duty or outward righteousness, but instead because we have a longing and desperation to experience God as he inhabits his people, the choice is actually quite powerful. Missionary’s lives are frenetic and chaotic by nature, and the choice to assemble every week on our sabbath for prayer, confession, worship, and input from a gifted teacher/leader is pretty significant when you think about it. To never be more than seven days away from input and the spiritual discipline of worship. To never be far from the gift of exhortation. Maybe more than anyone in America, our community actually needs worship services. I’m not sure non-Christians need them, and the religious ritual seems to be toxic to the nominal Christian (keeping them where they are). But for us? For those who love and lead daily? This one spiritual disciple may turn out to be essential to our longevity and vitality. It is like sunshine or fresh air, you can live without it, but why would you? We need it. And maybe, just maybe it is the routine that creates a powerful rhythm allowing a tangible grace into our war-torn lives. What becomes toxic for the unengaged is actually life-giving for the sacrificial, hungry, and connected church.

If we gather because we have a longing and desperation to experience God as he inhabits his people, the choice is actually quite powerful.

At least for us, the missionary fringe, I think I was wrong about Sundays.

We actually need it.