Keeping the Sabbath With Others

[frog]

I'm fairly new to the practice of Sabbath keeping and have been keeping the Sabbath alone. But I would like to find a way to draw others from my church into the spiritual blessings and delights of the Lord’s day. Have you got any advice on how I can do this outside the context of public worship? How do you keep the Sabbath with others as a market day for the soul?

I would like to host a lunch and have others over but I'm not sure what activities to do? I'd like to provoke spiritual conversation and prayer, but some times people seem more interested in speaking on other matters (such as their hobbies) or in playing board games.

 

[Request-Deleted member 11775]

You're always welcome to visit the Sydney (AUS) congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland!

 

[JD]

I would like to host a lunch and have others over but I'm not sure what activities to do? I'd like to provoke spiritual conversation and prayer, but some times people seem more interested in speaking on other matters (such as their hobbies) or in playing board games.

We attend an NCT/Prog. Cov. Baptist church where this dynamic is ever-present. We have found enormous blessing for ourselves and our fellow members in regularly hosting/organizing lunchtime gatherings after church. That would be my #1 suggestion. Invite people over regularly - maybe even a standing invitation for anyone to join. We have done that in the past. Make a concerted effort to discuss the sermon and other spiritual things. Ask your brothers how you can pray for them. Share what you've been reading and what the Lord is teaching you in your private and family devotions. Ask them the same. Frame this all as service in your own mind.

Don't try to police other people's conversations. Fellowship with Christ's body is a worthy use of time on the Lord's Day even if the conversation isn't always holy. None of us are perfect or perfectly keep the Day. Love, care for, pray for, encourage, and walk with your fellow members as we've been called to do. Don't lord the Lord's Day over them - invite them to experience the blessing of the day in their fellowship with you. As oppurtunities come up over the course of weeks and months you can share the theology of the day with them: a topic which encompasses all of redemptive history and is emminently edifying for all parties. Perhaps the Lord will convict them of the practice as a result, but that should not be your goal (that is: conviction over this one issue, important as it is). We're given to one another for one another's good. Earnest seeking to honor the Lord and trusting in Christ's blood and righteousness without understanding the Lord's Day is infinitely better than a legalistic effort to earn God's favor through Sabbath keeping (an impossible task which tramples the Gospel underfoot).

 

[frog]

Thank you, I really appreciate your advice. In viewing it as service, if they want to play board games should I join in?

 

[Ben Zartman]

Thank you, I really appreciate your advice. In viewing it as service, if they want to play board games should I join in?

Playing games with other people is a great way to get them to loosen up, and thus learn more about them and be able to serve them better. They'll trust you and like you better if you unbend enough to join them, as long as you can do it with good conscience.
I play games with my children on the Sabbath to keep them from wigging out and heading to the evening service already bored out of their gourds. I'd say that's a necessity with smaller children, and a delightful family time now that they're older and we all scatter to various activities during the week. There is wonderful communion in the playing of games around a table, and often good conversation.

 

[Jake]

Thank you, I really appreciate your advice. In viewing it as service, if they want to play board games should I join in?

Personally I would not. I see value in certain Bible themed games for kids on the Sabbath to help train them (focused on memory verses for example) and could see using some sort of game to prompt discussion, but I think we need to be careful to take the warning of the prophet Isaiah seriously (Isaiah 58:13-14).

 

[Northern Crofter]

I have found bringing up the sermon for discussion after a shared meal is the easiest way to "set the tone" for conversations with folks we have invited over after worship.

In pleasant weather, going for a walk together can also be fitting and helpful, especially if there are children who need to move. With all the glory of God's work in nature, there are constant opportunities to turn any conversation back to the Creator. I admit I currently have the advantage of living in a rural area and owning land, but I have done this while living in an urban area, too. I have always appreciated the words of the LC reminding us that one of the benefits of the Sabbath is that it helps us "continue a thankful remembrance of the two great benefits of creation and redemption." In my experience, public worship is largely fixed on the latter and it is in my private activities that more often provide opportunities for the former.

As for games, I once knew a guy who would play Scrabble on the Lord's Day but you could only use words found in the Bible. There is a plethora of Bible-themed games on the market, but I personally find any game distracting because I am too competitive. For others it might be a way for them to keep their minds fixed on worshipping God that day. But there will always be a struggle - in both public and private worship - between worshipping God and wanting to be entertained.

 

[frog]

Thank you all! You've provided lots of helpful ideas.

 

[VictorBravo]

I’ll add that I sometimes have people over for a slow cooker meal and then we sing psalms and hymns. Usually we also take the sermon and expand discussion.

People seem to respect my position on not talking politics or sports.

 

[jwithnell]

I was in a similar situation in terms of being single and trying to encourage a good use of the Lord's day. That congregation went two different ways with some heading out to restaurants and the rest of us inviting each other over for edifying conversation. You just do what you can do.

 

[Request-Deleted member 11775]

For what it's worth, the Sabbath keeping of the godly in Scotland in the past involved avoiding things like games, as well as going for walks (unless it was nearby outside to calm a small child), and having people visit at the homes was limited to those who had travelled to church from quite a distance (or who were already staying over of course) or to single people/students in the congregation who wouldn't have any company at home on the day and to save them preparing a meal.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

This still is Sabbath-keeping in quarters of the church! A delight.