Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

In a recent post to his blog “Jump Start Church”, Steve Sjogren asked (and gave his opinion on) “Why is it that when your weekend services start, only 15-20% are present?” This piqued my interest since I realize I am a habitual late comer to our church service.

This last Sunday I stood in the back (I was on time, for a change) and counted the number of people arriving late. I estimate 30-40% of the attenders came in late. Probably 20% of the people came late enough that they missed all or part of the service given to outlining church activities, purposes, and future goals. This is unfortunate since our church is in the process of establishing a new vision and direction under new leadership.

Clearly, some people seem to be habitually late. I can think of some friends who we have come to expect to arrive about a half hour late to any activity. We’ve learned to compensate for their nature. But why do people do this? What accounts for lateness?

In considering my own behavior, I realize there are many kinds of activities that I’m late for, but some for which I’ve never been late. For instance, I’ve never been late for jury duty, a meeting with my boss (and on the few occasions when I crossed into the stratospheric territory of top level management I was in the building at least 15 minutes early). I’m not late for concerts or plays that I pay a lot of money for. All of which leads me to believe that my punctuality or lack thereof reflects my values. If the penalty or reward is too great to ignore, I will not be late.

Now if I were asked, “Do you value your church’s worship service,” I would reply, “Of course I do.” But if I consistently miss a portion of that worship service by being late, does that not more truthfully indicate how much I value that part of the service? In the same way, my conclusion is the late comers to a church service don’t believe there is either a penalty or a reward. The early part of the service just doesn’t matter to them.

I believe it is easy, and wrong, to criticize folks for their choice in arriving late to church. It’s equally tempting for church leaders to rationalize this issue by assuming lateness is just part of some people’s nature. The really difficult question for church leadership is how to do better at leading people to full participation in church services.