If you stumbled upon this blog it’s important for you to know that I currently pastor a church. While I think that this article is important to pastors, I believe it is also important for everyone. I want to talk about why I still go to church while I am on vacation.

First let me say we have not attended church on 100% of our vacations. The church that I work for gives me five Sundays off a year and there have been a few occasions about once every two or three years that we have not made it to church while on vacation.

Why would I believe it is  important to attend church while on vacation? First, I want my children to know that while we vacate from work, school, house chores and many other activities,  we never vacate from God. He is the one thing that we never take a break from.

In doing so we’re trying to send a message to our children. That you do need breaks from things like work, school and house chores. There are times to get away from those things which is important to teach your children.  Vacation is the perfect time to spend time together for us. We want to make sure that we don’t leave out the most important member of our family, which is God. He is the core of our family and if we are going to make Him that, we need to make sure that he is not eliminated from our lives five times a year.

Second, there are more Christians out there than those at our church. I think a lot of times people in general get discouraged and say that Christianity is dwindling in the country. When we’re on vacation, whether in another city or state or  locally, it’s encouraging to know there are many other Christians out there who love and serve God.

Third, our church is not the only good church. Too many times when young adults leave home and move to a  new place, they never find a church. I believe one reason is because children are told how their church is the only good church. We want our children to see that there a lot of great  churches out there.

We also want them to know that different churches do things different ways. I don’t mean that some worship Jesus and others worship Buddha, or that our church teaches salvation by grace and other churches teach salvation by works. I want my kids to see that different churches have different types of music, dress, and practical ways to serve. I think it’s good for children to see that there different kinds of churches that still preach the gospel of Christ. Gives them a different perspective.

Fourth, we can get ideas for improvement  sometimes from another church. Several times while visiting elsewhere I’ve observed something and thought, you know what, I really like how they do that. I can bring those ideas to our church and at times we implement them. There have been times that I have made what some would consider significant changes from ideas that I observed at another  church on vacation.

Now there is a caveat to this one. Everything that you see at another church is not necessarily good for your church. It takes a lot of wisdom to decide what may be appropriate for your church. There’ve been times that people have gone on vacation to a church that’s 10 times the size of ours, returning  with ideas that were just not practical for the size of our church. Or maybe size had nothing to do with it but the context of culture we live in locally will simply not fit.

Lastly, it’s always good to hear someone different speak. I like to think that I keep things pretty fresh in my sermons, but if you go to church on vacation you can hear something different that you might not have heard from your pastor.

Even if we were  preaching the same passage, there’s going to be a different personality between the two speakers. In all honesty this gives you a break from the monotony of hearing your pastor. If you go to church on vacation several times and so does he, it will be less likely that his speaking will be stale to you.

Let me say that once in a while we we have done a “church service” at home because  the opportunity has not presented itself to go out of town on vacation. We have pulled out the computer, listened to a sermon online, listened to some worship songs, and prayed together as a family. This is not something that is great for a steady diet, but can work in a pinch.

Do you go to church on vacation? If you don’t, why not? Are there other reasons that you go to church on vacation that I have not listed? If you don’t go to church or vacation every time you’re on vacation, what kind of mentality about church do you think your children will grow up with? What are the benefits of going to church on vacation?

Thanks for taking time to read this Maddening Theology post. If you enjoyed this content you can find Pastor Tim’s sermons at www.cornerstoneforestcity.org. You can also join us at 520 Marion St. Browndale, PA 18421 on Sundays at 10:45 AM. To make following the blog easier you can also register. You can also join us on Facebook at Cornerstone Forest City. Also, don’t forget to download our APP on iTunes  or Googleplay.