“Congregational Meetings On Sunday?”

From a reader in the Eastern part of the States comes a question pertaining to the propriety of holding annual congregation meetings on Sunday. The reference is to the regular business meetings, at which time budgets are adopted and duties of committees are discussed and determined, etc., and. not just to the special times when a pastor is extended a call. “We feel that conducting business meetings of any kind on the sabbath is improper use of the Lord’s Day . . . People who love their church should surely be able to come to a week night meeting once a year whether it is convenient or not,” comments the author of this question.

I would begin by saying that I agree with my correspondent that it is inappropriate to hold the annual congregational meeting on Sunday. Realizing that there are those who will disagree with that forthright statement, let me explain why I take that position.

I do not promote a pharisaical idea of the Lord’s Day, by which I mean that we ought not to be governed by a whole list of don’ts and negatives. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of conducting ourselves by a set of rigid rules, where the rules become more important than the idea or concept they are intended to promote and preserve. God expressed His will for us when He inscribed that tablet of stone with His finger: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” Obviously God intended that day to be different from the other six, not because something which is “right” on the other six days becomes “sinful” on the sabbath, but because He put a special claim on that one day in distinction from the other six.

So what is to happen on the sabbath day? It is a day for worship. It is a day in which we are invited to enter into and enjoy the blessed fruits and benefits of Christ’s redemptive work. God is to be praised, and His people are to be inspired and challenged and refreshed. spiritually for their walk and work in life. We are not to think of ourselves as isolated segments of saved people, but as parts of a body, having been ingrafted into Him as a branch into a vine, all dependent on Him for our life and interdependent on one another. Thus we enjoy the communion of the saints in the fellowship of the body as we worship. And in order that we may fulfill God’s purpose for that day, we have to set aside the work in which we are normally engaged during the week.

Now I suspect that those who would promote the appropriateness of the annual congregational meeting on Sunday afternoon would justify it by saying that it is “spiritual” work, or it is “kingdom” business. Very true! But for the Christian, is it not so that all his work is “kingdom” business, and that none of it may be divorced from his “spiritual” life? And in that light, could we not “legitimatize” any kind of work by the Christian on Sunday?

By the same token, there is “business” to be conducted at an annual congregational meeting, which, though it surely relates to “spiritual” things, is not that much different than the operation of any other business. There are likely to be discussions about salaries for the pastor and custodian, monies to be spent for buildings and repairs and maintenance, and the like. Does the conducting of such business fit into the spirit and intent of the Lord’s Day? I think not. If it does, then what is to prevent any Christian business man from holding his annual corporation meeting on a Sunday afternoon? For he is also dealing with the Lord’s time and money and possessions, and the matter of responsible Christian stewardship towards his employees.

Jesus did not oppose the works of mercy on the Lord’s Day (Matt. 12:1–14, Luke 14:1–6); but He did say that “the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). In other words, man was made first, and then the sabbath. And in his commentary on this passage, Hendriksen writes: “The sabbath was instituted to be a blessing for man: to keep him healthy, to make him helpful, hence happy, to render him holy, so that he might calmly meditate on the works of his Maker, might ‘delight himself in Jehovah’ (Is. 58:13, 14), and look forward with joyful anticipation to the sabbath rest that remains for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9), (The Gospel Of Mark, p. 108).

Let each church and consistory examine its own conscience with regard to this matter, but as I see it, to hold our annual congregational meetings on the Lord’s Day is to detract from the spirit and idea of the day, and can only serve to lead us on a path onto which we will someday wish we had never entered. Let the day be free from “administrative” and “business” decisions, and let us call it “a delight, and the holy of the Lord honorable . . . .” (Is. 58:13).