Does God Take Vacations?

warning: I'm gonna get on my soapbox and vent here for a bit. Bruce and I just finished a rousing conversation over lunch which prompted me to post a question on my facebook status which is now prompting me to blog about it.

There seems to be this strange phenomenon that happens every summer. Church attendance drops radically. Now, I get that some of us actually GO AWAY ON vacation, but I am thinking about the people who have so many other excuses for not attending church, (o.k., summertime or otherwise)

excuses I have heard:
it starts too early
it starts too late
we have a family reunion this weekend
we have a class reunion this weekend
it's mothers day
it's fathers day
it's log show weekend
it's memorial(labor, 4th of July, etc) weekend
we have family in from out of town
it's sunny and the fish are jumping
it's raining and the fish are jumping
it's my only day to sleep in
it's my only day off

and on and on it goes....

so does God take vacations? Does he ever sleep in or not come to church because he has company? What if he did?

I guess my real question here is, how important is going to God's house of worship? How important is your relationship with God? On your list of priorities where does spending time with God fall? Is going to church important? How important?

If you are raising a family, and you want to instill values in your children, would you like them to know that God comes first? How will you teach that... for example, if something else, anything else, can be used as an excuse to not go to God's House, what message are you sending to your kids about the priority of Worship?

I have recently experienced what it is like to show up at a church and be the only one there. It was really sad. So this week I conducted a little bit of an experiment and called the few people on the list of regular attendees at that church to see if they were planning to attend this Sunday or not. I explained my reason for calling; how no one was there last week so we just wanted to make sure we'd have anyone come this week. I got some yes's and some no's. One of the yes's even said, "but let me know if no one else is coming because then we won't come out."

Over all, not a single person expressed any real concern that church didn't happen. They didn't seem to get it, that church didn't take place because they were not there.

there was a sign in front of a church one day... it said:
CH__ __ CH

what's missing?

U R

Aaaah. Hmmmm. If you think you are not important to the body of Christ, guess again. If we all start thinking our presence won't make a difference, we will have an empty church building. and with an empty church building, you do not have a church. I think that is the future of the little church I attended last Sunday all by myself.

I take that back. I wasn't there all by myself. Someone else was with me. Because God doesn't take vacations.