How to Not Vacate Your Holiday

Here in Canada, it's the first major long weekend of the summer, or pseudo summer (with temps in the 60s and rain forecast, calling this summer is a stretch). 

Over the years, I have slowly been convinced that the #1 false god in our culture is pleasure. We love to indulge ourselves, and in just a few hours time, the northbound 400 (which I can see from my office in south barrie) will be clogged with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Toronto for Muskoka.

I'm all for taking time off.  I have several weeks scheduled this summer, and a concert, some golf and some boating scheduled this weekend (oh yeah, and yard work). 

Just for a moment, think about the words we use to describe our down time.  Sometimes we call it a vacation.  To vacate something means to leave it empty. 

I think the spirit of our culture is a vacation spirit.  I feel the pull to get out of something into nothing.  And basically, when I do that, there is little room left for God.  My life gets filled up with me and my wants and desires.

The other word we use is holiday. It's defined as a day of celebration  where no work is done, and originally, it goes back to two words "holy day".  Over and over again in the Old Testament, God told his people to stop all regular work so they could celebrate Him.

I hope your break this weekend is more than a vacation, but a holiday. 

We had an interesting leadership team meeting yesterday where we were actively debating whether to step up the level of programming and special elements at Connexus on summer long weekends, which is the opposite of what most churches do. (Like what about a tailgate party after church at each campus on the August long weekend?)  As I thought about that overnight, I like the idea more and more.  It will help us infuse more God and community into our time off.  (Tell me what you think about that idea).

This weekend is going to be a big weekend as we kick off a major series in Barrie and bring a big party to town in Orillia. 

Wherever you are, my hope is that you and I will find God more deeply and remember to put first what matters most. 

The anticipated highlight of my weekend?  I think it might be Sunday.  And I would deeply hope I would say that even if I wasn't on staff.  Somehow, when God planned this all out originally, I think that He kind of planned to be the highlight of the whole deal.   I hope we can capture some of that this summer.

Comments

[Chris]

Summer is tough - you want A+ programming but you know that you have less people around to pull it off and less people to experience it.

We scale back but keep quality high - two services down to one service, lots of midweek stuff down to a couple of things, etc. We've found that to be a really good balance between expectations and availability.

[Carey Nieuwhof]

Chris...Great points. We were surprised when we circulated a schedule for our e-teams on one of our campuses this week and saw that people opted into summer service as fast as they did.

I think the challenge is to create an environment irresistible enough that people go "sorry I missed that". I'm also thinking about doing an "A" series in the summer.

[Jeff Loach]

I wonder, Carey, if our obsession with leisure time/pleasure comes in part from Canadians being said to be among the most vacation-deprived nation in the world. Stats show we get an average of 19 days of vacation a year.

No excuse, of course, but just some grist for the mill.