The Burr in the Burgh

Pastor Rip M. Auff of Abundant Life Family Center (a church) in Harbinger, Texas announced this week that in 2006, they will cancel their church services on Easter so that their employees and members can spend time with their families.

"I don't see what the big upset is about. This is just a desire for us to emphasize family time on Easter," Auff replied. To the hard-nosed stick-in-the-muds, this reflects an idea common in certain religious circles, the idea that one can strengthen one's family relationships by skipping church. The church, in other words, is an impediment to reeeaaallll spiritual growth.

Auff continued, "As our chums over at Willow Creek have said, 'we don't think of it as not having church. We think of it as de-centralizing church.'" Another highly reputable news source has observed that this is like having church by not having church.

Minister of Music for the church, C. Meinthemiddle, D.Mus., added "It's more than being family-friendly. It's being lifestyle-friendly for people who are just very, very busy."

In fact, the church governing board is planning to meet in the new year to discuss cancelling church every Sunday for the above stated reasons.

Rev. Auff explained, "Up to now, we average 7,000 attendees each weekend. Do you have any idea how much work goes into preparing for all that? And the number of volunteers? By Mondays, I'm really tired."

Another church leader who asked to remain anonymous stated that she has noticed that some weekends their numbers drop down below 6500. "That can be really frustrating, you know," she said. "All that work, you want a lot of people there to enjoy it."

While some church members have complained, "they're just hung up on human tradition," the pastor argued. "We're not about tradition. We're about Jesus. And you don't need to come to church to worship Jesus do you?!"

The leaders of Abundant Life Family Center said that they gave their church its name for a reason. It's all about family was the repeated refrain.

Related Burr post.

[P.S. I'm only kidding a little. See this right here. And if you don't go over to What You Do, Do Quickly for this trenchant post, I won't give you any pudding.]