Skip to main content

Why Attendance is Important

As a pastor, I believe in the power of meetings. Call me naive, but I think stuff can still be accomplished at them. Plus, I have a fear of missing them. I worry about what will be discussed in meetings when I am not there.

This is not a simple junior-high fear of wondering what people are saying about me behind my back. No, like any long-term church members should know, I fear being volunteered for something I don't want to do. (Or as Jon Acuff calls it on Stuff Christians Like, being volun-told.)

Some people might call this an irrational fear. After all, you can just tell the committee later that their good idea will be great, just as long as someone else besides you has to carry it out. That works, right? Good luck carrying out that plan with a committe chair trained to get volunteers, willing or unwilling.

But I finally have Biblical proof that missing meetings is a bad idea, a very bad idea.

All the proof I need is found in Genesis 34. A young lad by the name of Shechem falls in love with Dinah, Jacob's daughter. Now, if you actually go and read the story, you're going to find some extra-curricular activity going on that is the subject of stuff not normally put in song, but I want to skip ahead.

Shechem falls in love and asks Jacob for his daughter's hand in marriage. Jacob seems ok with it, but Dinah's brothers have other plans. So they demand that Shechem and his whole town be circumcised.

Ok, first of all, this isn't like asking a guy if you can borrow $20. This gets very personal, very quickly. But Shechem seems to not even realize what circumcision is and he gets one quite hastily. (Genesis 34:19)

This is when the meeting happens. Shechem and his dad, Hamor, go and have a meeting with the leaders of the town. They explain that Shechem wants to marry Dinah and that Dinah's family will only allow the marriage if they all get circumcised. Convinced it's a good idea, they all agree.

WHAT!?!

Do they even know what a circumcision is? Was there an instruction manual? Did they see Shechem limping? Couldn't they just send gifts or money as a nice wedding gift?

I can't even begin to imagine hearing about the meeting afterward as every dude in town is called together for the wedding preparation. "Shechem wants us to do what?"

If I'm not at that meeting, I'm raising some objections. I believe I would instantly have a new resoluton to NEVER MISS A MEETING AGAIN.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

Jury Duty

I was recently summoned to jury duty. I know, groan. Except I didn't. I had never experienced it before and was curious to see what it was like.   When the day to report arrives, they separate you into groups, asking various questions to decide if you will be selected to serve. Do you know the accused? Do you have conflicts that would keep you from serving? Can you stay focused?  I wanted to answer well, if only because my kids kept wishing me luck the day before, telling me they hoped I made the team. After all, who wants to be rejected? It occurred to me that there are things you probably shouldn’t say right away if you’re wanting to serve on a jury. I know, I know, people don’t typically want to serve on a jury. But that list didn’t seem nearly as humorous to me. Here are the things you probably shouldn’t say if you want to be selected for jury. I hold myself in contempt. You can’t handle the truth. We find the defendant guilty. I believe the judge looks pretty in his ...
Post a Comment
Read more