I love you, Sister.

My sister doesn't like my current thread of Theological Thoughts for Thursday, so I will make a more random post just for her.

I've been going to dawn prayer fairly often. This is odd for me, because as a general rule I hate dawn. I watched two sunrises in the 4 years I lived in Toccoa; to give you some perspective.

I'm required to attend two Sunday morning worship services, a foriegn teacher small group, and Wednesday night worship. I generally dislike all of these events. I think most of my frustration comes from the fact that they are mandatory. Oh, I have my little reasons and excuses for each event. The first service is too crowded, the second Sunday service is too disorganized. The foreign teacher small group is the worst experience of my week ( I pray that some day I will be able to laugh about these awful weekly experiences.) And the Wednesday night worship is too long. But I know all of these reasons are only excuses (except for the small group, which really is dreadful).

I don't believe anyone can be forced to worship. You can force someone to go to church, but worship is so different than going to church. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

I love dawn prayer because it isn't mandatory. No one excpects me to show up. Everyone is rather surprised by my presence, actually. So, it's my own thing. It's my choice. I go to Sunday morning services because I'm forced. I worship at dawn prayer because I choose to go there.

So it makes me think about the reasons we go to church. Here, I'm forced. But in American churches, sometimes people go to church because they are expected to go. If you don't feel like going to church, people will think that something is wrong. So we go to church when we don't feel like it, just to keep up appearances.

I believe our thinking to be wrong. I think that when we routinely say the Lord's Prayer without meaning it that we take the Lord's name in vain. Maybe there's something fundamentally wrong with going to church when your heart's not in it. Maybe worship has to be a personal choice - or maybe it's something that broadsides you when you least expect it.