I couldn’t get Hebrews 10 out of my mind as I pondered this. Hebrews 10:25 is the verse that pastors love to remind people that they really should go to a church service on a Sunday, and it is well suited for that purpose. The writer warns that they shouldn’t be like those who neglect to meet together regularly, thus reminding us once and for all that the gathering of the saints is an essential activity in the life of the believer. But, there are three imperatives in the verses leading up to verse 25 that I think describe some of what we are supposed to be experiencing when we do gather.

It isn’t lost on me that the most discouraging Sunday in church ministry is often the Sunday after Easter, as auditoriums and parking lots return to normal and as people’s sense of the reality of Christ’s resurrection seems like a distant memory.

Part of this discouragement is because we do measure the wrong things and I know that. We usually measure number of attenders, which is an interesting metric, but not a real guage on the impact that the gospel is having on a group of people. But, part of this discouragement is the nagging sense that we know that if we were all really paying attention to the reality of the resurrection, then every Sunday would feel like Easter Sunday. The fact that it doesn’t just shows what a distracted group of people we are.