According to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, many families are forgoing attending church on Sunday, for Wednesday.
"Each Wednesday, the Latzke family heads to their Bloomington church for an evening of religious education and a worship service. Sunday is too packed to squeeze in church, so now Wednesday is their day — as it is for thousands of busy Minnesotans.
“Wednesday is the new Sunday,” is what some clergy call this trend reflecting the scheduling quirks of modern families."
The Wednesday services include food, worship, and religious education.
It would be laudable if this were in addition to Sunday services but this is being in place of Sunday services. It appears that for many, their busy lives have taken precedence over any type of reverence for their "holy" day, Sunday. Sports, fishing, work, and spending time at the lake are now in the first place.
Not even a hundred years ago in the USA, most Sunday-keepers kept Sunday holy, in ways which would shame many of today's Sabbath-keepers. Many abstained from work and worldly duties. My how far the general sense of holiness has fallen in our country!
And this is even in our beloved SDA church. A few years ago, a local SDA pastor lamented to me about how outside of his own family, only two others in church keep the Sabbath, everybody else goes shopping, hits the restaurants after church etc. This is what happens when we place ourselves above the holy requirements of God (Exodus 20:8-11).
But this shift to Wednesday services should now be viewed as the self-evident nail in the coffin that the seeker-sensitive worship models are a complete failure.
If people won't come to a Saturday evening service, an early Sunday morning "Old wine skin" service, a late Sunday morning "New Wine skin" rockabilly service, or a Sunday late afternoon 4:30 service, we should now try further with Wednesday?
The article continues, "Some folks question whether the Sabbath — which the Bible says is “the seventh day of the week” — can even be celebrated on a Wednesday. Clergy insist it can be. Said North:
“Worshiping God can happen any day of the week. The trend is no surprise to the Rev. Dawn Alitz, director of lifelong learning programs at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. In fact, the seminary is offering a summer session entitled “Rethinking Sunday Morning,” she said. The message: “God may be working more than just on Sunday mornings.”
Seeing as how heresies in the Christian world first come in through the fallen churches of Babylon, then make their way into the SDA faithful, watchmen on the walls of Zion may soon be hearing of "amazing" and "Spirit-led" ways in which we too will be told by wolves in sheep's clothing that "God is working on more than just Sabbath mornings" and that we can worship God "any day of the week."
Let us pray that we be kept from the wiles of the Devil and not fall for such sophistries.
John Kannenberg is the Director of Great Western Health Foundation, in Fargo, ND