WHERE WE GO ON SUNDAY

   Like me, Neal Dean Gilland II was born into this world with a great advantage. He has an older brother (in fact,  Neal Dean has two older brothers!). Those older brothers will show Neal Dean the "ropes" of life. They'll teach him how to bait a hook and throw a curve ball, how to use the computer and ride a bicycle. When the time is right, they'll teach him how to shave and everything he'll ever need to know about girls.

   The lessons have already started. On the way home from the hospital for the very first time, older brother Cash pointed out the church to Neal Dean. "Baby," he said, "that's our church and that's where we go on Sunday."

   Of all the lessons taught in the family, perhaps the most important one is the lesson of faith. Perhaps there was a time when faith was taught in the school system, but that time has passed. There was a time when the Christian faith was the dominant faith of the community, something "everybody" believed, and whether a devotional before the meeting or a prayer before kickoff, something in which everybody participated. Not now. There was a time when there were no games, no practices scheduled on Sunday morning, but no longer. We in the church have lost Sunday in many ways.

   Even the church can't do it alone. As Barbara Brown Taylor points out in her new book, Learning To Walk In The Dark, sometimes the efforts of the church, well-intended as they are, are not enough. We get your kids for a few minutes here and there (and only when there is not a more important ball game or swim meet) and perhaps the teachers are not as educated as we might like. Our lessons are quite often not as much fun as a movie or a computer game, rather boring in fact, and our children like to move on to something else.

   But the family is something else. It is there that we live out the ups and downs of daily life. We share our most intimate concerns, our greatest victories. We see each other at our best and at our worst. We set priorities, and our children see them. In the family we declare who we are and who we are not.

   Don't misunderstand me. I believe in the role of the church, and part of the family process is public worship together. But another part is taking home the lessons learned, the stories heard, and discussing and implementing them together.

   Cash was correct in his instruction to Neal Dean. The church is where we go on Sunday. There, we learn how to live together the other days of the week. Cash, you got it right.

   And I'll see you this Sunday.

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