Redeemer Family,
Good evening friends. I hope you and yours are well. The summer is winding down and for many of us the fall semester has already kicked off. In the Marotta house, it’s a week of firsts:
First time (for some children) waking up before 7:00 a.m.!
First day of school.
First soccer practice.
First cello lesson.
First homework assignment.
In all of these firsts, we are feeling the challenge of needing to form new habits to sustain us through the fall semester. We need to go to bed earlier and we need to plan our calendars more carefully. We need to get used to all of these new things as “firsts” settle, through repetition, into seconds, thirds, fourths, etc. And, you know, we’re actually not worried about it at all. The music instructor doesn’t expect our child to master the cello in her first week. The coach doesn’t expect our kid to play like Messi right away. Rachel and I don’t expect our family to thrive immediately, we know it will take lots of intentional consistently before all these new things feel natural and automatic.
THE QUESTION
I wonder, since most of us know this in most areas of life, do we know this about our relationship with God and with each other in the Church?
THE LIKELY PROBLEM
My sense is that even though most people understand that consistency in the gym leads to strength, consistency in the classroom leads to knowledge, and consistency in diet leads to health; we somehow have come to believe that consistency in our life with God and each other shouldn’t be necessary.
Many of us have somehow come to believe that whenever we skip a Sunday worship service, or take a semester off from Small Group fellowship, or go a week or two without reading the Bible or praying - that somehow we will stay right where we are spiritually, until we return to that practice later. It’s almost as if we think that growing spiritually is like building a model plane. We leave our spiritual lives on the table and, every so often, we sit down and add a few more pieces. Read a Christian book - add a piece. Go to Small Group - add another piece. Take a class - add another piece. We think, eventually, we’ll build the whole thing and then we’ll be mature/close-to-God/grown-up.
THE DIFFICULT (BUT GLORIOUS) REALITY
However, the reality is that our bodies and souls are nothing like a model plane. We are dynamic, living creatures. The best biblical imagery for this is a person as a tree. How many days out of the year does the average tree need sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide?
Every. Single. Day.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
— Psalm 1:1-3
INCONSISTENCY IS NOT NEUTRAL, IT LEADS TO DECLINE
If you put a plant in the closet for two weeks, will it still be the same when you bring it back out? No. It will have wilted. If you keep this plant on a monthly rotation where it spends one week in the sun and then one week in the closet, will it grow only half as fast as if it was in the sun all the time? No. It will get weaker and steadily decline until it dies.
IMPLICATIONS FOR US
Friends, consistency in things like daily Bible reading, daily prayer, weekly participation in corporate worship, weekly receiving of Holy Communion, Sabbath rest, weekly participation in small group fellowship… These things are not just decent options for someone who is extra-intentional about growing in their faith, these are essential habits without which our life with God and with each other will wilt, decline, and eventually die.
DON’T ADD, REPLACE
Now, most of us already have very full calendars, and so the microsecond a pastor starts talking about regular, consistent daily and weekly participation - we all start feeling either anxiety, or frustration, or both! How on earth am I supposed to do all of these things! Doesn’t the church know how busy I already am?
Yes, my friend. I hear. I am you. Our family has much to do as well and there simply isn’t time for everything. So we have to make hard choices and there will be good things that we say “no” to in order to say “yes” to Christ and to his Church.
There are invitations for weekend vacations we would like to take that we will decline in order to be present on Sundays.
There are extra-curricular activities I would like my kids to do that we will not do so that we fellowship with you, our church family.
There is work (good work I might add!) that I want to do over the weekends that I simply will not do so that our family can enjoy Sabbath Rest.
So, this is not a rallying call to add more things to your schedule. Rather, it is an invitation to replace non-essentials with essentials. To replace the good with the best.
BE REALISTIC ABOUT HOW LONG IT TAKES TO FORM A NEW HABIT
Studies have shown that it takes anywhere from 66 - 250+ days in order to establish a new habit so that it no longer requires effort, but comes automatically. So if you want healthy spiritual habits to feel natural, it is going to take at least 2-8 months of consistency. This explains why so many of us never really get the hang of worshipping every week or reading the Bible every day. Our inconsistency has prevented us from ever solidly establishing the habit. Which means that every time we do attend a worship service, or small group, or set aside time to read the Bible and pray, it takes a lot of effort! It’s hard. Hard things generally aren’t fun and they make us want to quit. It’s only once something becomes natural and automatic that we’re able to really enjoy it.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PARENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN
OK, I know this demographic isn’t everybody, but there sure are a lot of folks in this stage of life. Let me talk directly to y’all for a minute. Back when Redeemer reopened for in-person worship services in July of 2020, the Marotta kids were (like everyone) way out of the habit of participating in a corporate worship service. It took our family a solid 14 weeks to reestablish that rhythm. For us, that meant a solid 3 ½ months of difficult Sunday morning experiences. It was hard. Worshipping with the church as a family was very challenging and often discouraging.
Now, imagine if we had only attended 6 or 7 Sundays out of those 14 weeks… we never would have made it!
So, fellow-parents-of-young-children, if you want Sunday morning worship to go better for your family… I have some good-but-hard-to-swallow news for you. The only way over that hill is through it.
IF YOU WANT TO THRIVE…
In conclusion, as we all look forward to the Fall semester, let me simply state what I hope is obvious by now - If you want to thrive in your relationship with God and with the church community, then focus on forming new habits through consistent presence. Of course, everything I’m writing today is founded upon the absolutely outrageous and audacious idea that our life together in Christ Jesus is not only the most important and only true essential thing in all of human existence, bar none; but also the very thing that makes human beings come alive and thrive.
In other words, living out the Gospel is not only right and true, it’s also good for you and leads to your everlasting joy.
So, church family, let’s live this together this Fall semester. Let’s allow the Gospel to reorder our lives, calendars, and priorities. I’m genuinely looking forward to the season that lies ahead for us and can’t wait to live it with you.
In the Father’s love,
