IN the NEWS - Danish "Sunday" Battle

"Why not move Sunday service to a weekday?

Anything SACRED about "sunday"?...the "elephant" in the room...

Young pastors call for a change in an age-old tradition

At a recent meeting of young pastors, arranged by the Ministry of Church Affairs, the Pastors’ Association, and the 10 bishops, the Sunday service came under fire from several quarters. All churches are now obliged to hold service on Sundays. At the meeting, some went so far so to propose that the obligation be abolished, for it is no longer serving its purpose. It should be possible to hold the traditional Sunday service on other days of the week, since it is an obstruction for church life as such. People would rather see Sunday as a family day. Already in Denmark it is the day when most sport is played – and most supermarkets and garden nurseries do a good trade.

“We want more people to come to church,” says Pastor Nikolaj Hartung Kjaerby of Husum, Copenhagen, to the Christian Daily, “so we are proposing that the standard is changed from a mandatory Sunday service to a mandatory weekly service. We want all the alternative services that we hold, such as ‘God and Spaghetti’ services (child-oriented service followed by common meal, ed.), meditation services, or whatever is popular locally to be allowed to replace the Sunday service. It is taking up too many resources for the investment it requires. The ‘alternative’ services are proving more popular in some areas, and we ought to place the theological emphasis on those services that people actually come to!”

Chair of the Pastors Association, Pastor Per Bucholdt Andreasen, supports the idea, arguing that services have already changed character considerably in recent years – perhaps with ‘God and Spaghetti’ being one of the most meaningful experiences the church has experienced for years.

Bishop of Lolland-Falster, Steen Skovsgaard, is also positive, “Let’s keep all our options open. If no one turns up on Sundays and other days prove to be more suitable, I can’t see why we must hold firm to Sunday just for the sake of holding firm. There’s more at stake here.”

Retiring Bishop of Ribe, Elisabeth Dons Christensen, is less sure, however. “I don’t like the idea of abolishing the traditional Sunday service; only in exceptional circumstances would I agree to it. And they would be if the local parish council made a justified application that could be evaluated and discussed a year later. This is a real intervention in our understanding of Sunday service being a celebration of the Day of Resurrection. We must tread carefully here.”  interchurch.dk

OBSERVATIONS:

1) Admission that Sunday isn't really the Sabbath-but rather a day to celebrate the resurrection

2) "Alternative" services are proving to be more popular....what does that say about the spiritual state of churches in Denmark?

3) Notice the focus on Sunday....the fight over it

4) If one is of the mind that Sunday is the day of the Lord, but can transfer its sacredness to any other day of the week, then why bother with honoring it at all? Is anything sacred anymore?

5) Hey----just an idea---how 'bout transferring the solemnity of the Lord's Day back to where it belongs....the 7th day?...Just saying....

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God:

Exodus 20:10