{"id":9422,"date":"2018-06-13T11:47:45","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T08:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/?p=9422"},"modified":"2018-06-13T14:16:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T11:16:17","slug":"an-open-letter-to-the-person-loitering-in-the-foyer-during-the-sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/an-open-letter-to-the-person-loitering-in-the-foyer-during-the-sermon\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to The Person Loitering in the Foyer During the Sermon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Person loitering in the foyer every Sunday,<\/p>\n<p>You might think nobody notices, you might think it&#8217;s no big deal, and you probably have some really great excuses for why you rarely if ever join us in the sanctuary for corporate worship and the preaching of God&#8217;s Word. Before you jump into self-justification, rationalization, and mitigation of the circumstances, let me share with you from a pastor&#8217;s perspective. You see you&#8217;re not the first person that I&#8217;ve noticed loitering in the foyer. There&#8217;s been a long line of lobby loungers and vestibule vacationers and every one of them has a reason for being there.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The sanctuary is too stuffy<\/li>\n<li>The child is too cranky<\/li>\n<li>A pressing phone call<\/li>\n<li>They have to leave early<\/li>\n<li>They got to the service late<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re preparing for children&#8217;s church<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re busy discipling someone<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re continuing a conversation that started before the service<\/li>\n<li>They have usher duty<\/li>\n<li>They have greeter duty<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re filling in for others<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re just making sure everything is under-control in the foyer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve heard just about every excuse you can give but there&#8217;s one thing I know, there is no ministry, no activity, and no responsibility so important that it should keep you from regular participation in the Church&#8217;s most important worship and teaching time of the week.<\/p>\n<p>If some ministry related responsibility is truly keeping you from the worship service then it&#8217;s a responsibility that is doing you more harm than good. Most likely you are over evaluating the need for your presence in that ministry. Hand it off to someone else for a while, if you can&#8217;t pass the responsibility on to someone else for at least a few Sundays then just put an end to the ministry until you have enough people to run it without forcing anyone to regularly miss the Sunday morning worship.<\/p>\n<p>However, in my experience it&#8217;s rarely other church responsibilities that stop people from going through the doors of the sanctuary and joining the church. The rest of those excuses that I gave above, well, that&#8217;s just what they are, excuses. They&#8217;re trying to justify patterns of behavior that are spiritually unhealthy. I&#8217;m not saying that there aren&#8217;t occasions when you might have to duck out of the sanctuary for a bit. I have 5 kids and believe me there were times when I had to take them out of the service. However, it was never a habit but rather an exception to the rule of regularly being part of Sunday morning worship.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"9444\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/an-open-letter-to-the-person-loitering-in-the-foyer-during-the-sermon\/two-men-talking-in-the-lobby-of-the-office\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1200,800\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;newagecinema - stock.adobe.com&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 6D&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;two men talking in the lobby of the modern office&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1472564312&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;\\u00a9newagecinema - stock.adobe.com&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;70&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;160&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.003125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;two men talking in the lobby of the office&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"two men talking in the lobby of the office\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9444\" src=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-1073x715.jpg 1073w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-483x322.jpg 483w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-360x240.jpg 360w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_126638731-263x175.jpg 263w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/>So what really keeps you out of the church service? I hate to break this news to you but when I see a person regularly coming to church and regularly avoiding being part of the congregation during worship and preaching I conclude one thing; he&#8217;s spiritually sick. I have yet to see an exception to this rule! It&#8217;s lack of spiritual desire and hunger for God&#8217;s Word, it&#8217;s a lack of devotion and eagerness for corporate worship, it&#8217;s the absence of an appetite for the things of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>Think about this, do sports fans buy tickets to see their favorite team play and then spend the game sauntering around the parking lot or checking out every hotdog and hamburger stand? Of course not! They go in because they love that sport, they know the players names, they want to see the action, and they want to be part of the crowd cheering them on!<\/p>\n<p>How could any healthy Christian come to church and not feel compelled to enter? How could someone who says he is a disciple of Jesus not want to be in the middle of teaching about Jesus, worship of Jesus, and fellowship of His followers?<\/p>\n<p>For now you may be coasting along in your spiritual life and not yet see some of the consequences of your behavior. But continue with this bad habit and you will eventually come to a stop, you can&#8217;t avoid the spiritual harm you are doing to yourself. You will reap the consequences one way or another.<\/p>\n<p>I know what you&#8217;re thinking,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Hey, I&#8217;m doing just fine spiritually, I read my Bible and pray at home every day.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Do I need to remind you that from day one the Church was about fellowship? They devoted themselves to the Apostle&#8217;s teaching and to Fellowship (Acts 2:42). They prayed together, they sat under the apostle&#8217;s teaching together, they broke bread together. Later the author of Hebrews tells us how important it is to make of habit of coming together.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.\u00a0<span class=\"s1\"><b>Heb 10:24-25<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Corporate worship isn&#8217;t primarily about you, it&#8217;s about Jesus and it&#8217;s about others. If you go to church with the attitude,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s see if I&#8217;ll get anything out of this,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>you won&#8217;t get anything out of it, at least not anything good! You&#8217;ll start to feel that the sermons are too simple or that they&#8217;re too theological, or too short or too long, or too many stories, or too boring, or too much yelling, or too little application, and the songs are too superficial, or too traditional, or too loud, or too quiet, or the musicians aren&#8217;t very talented, or the musicians are just trying to put on a show. You&#8217;ll find something in the service that doesn&#8217;t please your well-educated spiritual taste buds. You&#8217;ll be like a wine taster, swishing the sermon around in your mouth then spitting it out and proclaiming your expert opinion before going on to try out the church down the street.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"9445\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/an-open-letter-to-the-person-loitering-in-the-foyer-during-the-sermon\/workspace-casual-businessman-using-tablet-while-leaning-on-wall\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1200,800\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;seanlockephotography - stock.adobe.com&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 5D Mark IV&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;A business series set in various locations in a modern workspace office building.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1500724206&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;copyright 2017&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;140&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;400&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.004&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Workspace: Casual Businessman Using Tablet While Leaning On Wall&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Workspace: Casual Businessman Using Tablet While Leaning On Wall\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-1024x683.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9445\" src=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-1073x715.jpg 1073w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-483x322.jpg 483w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-360x240.jpg 360w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_176909404-263x175.jpg 263w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/>Have you considered how your habit of foyer loitering affects others in the church? I&#8217;ve seen you distract others with whispers and nodding heads while everyone else is worshiping Jesus. If you really thought Jesus was in the sanctuary during the worship service would you be doing the same thing? I don&#8217;t want to ever be guilty\u00a0of turning someone&#8217;s attention away from worshiping Jesus just because I have a funny story to tell them or some gossip to share, or a smart remark about the preacher&#8217;s sermon.<\/p>\n<p>My wife and I have worked hard for years to get our children to recognize the vital importance of corporate worship and then they see people like you and wonder &#8220;If Mr. So and So sits out in the foyer during the service why can&#8217;t I?&#8221; Your absence in corporate worship affects others and it can be detrimental to some.<\/p>\n<p>Dear friend I exhort you to take a serious spiritual inventory. Ask yourself these questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What is really keeping me from joining the Church in corporate worship?<\/li>\n<li>How is my absence in corporate worship affecting others?<\/li>\n<li>How is my lack of corporate worship affecting me?<\/li>\n<li>What wrong ideas do I need to correct so that I can joyfully join the Church in worship?<\/li>\n<li>How can I minister to others through my presence in the worship service?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Finally, I ask that you not take offense at this letter. I write it because I am truly concerned for your spiritual well-being and I know that without corporate worship and teaching you will not have the joy of Christ and the fellowship of the Church. I invite you to put down your guard, put aside the barriers, humble your spirit and join the Church in glorious worship of the King of kings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Person loitering in the foyer every Sunday,<\/p>\n<p>You might think nobody notices, you might think it&#8217;s no big deal,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[72,506,505],"class_list":["post-9422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-church","tag-church-attenance","tag-worship-service"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AdobeStock_188324580.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3izZc-2rY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9023,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/how-to-welcome-missionaries-when-they-visit-your-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":0},"title":"How to Welcome Missionaries When They Visit Your Church","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"January 17, 2018","format":"video","excerpt":"We visit a lot of Churches when we are in the US and I thought it would be helpful to share with you what I think are some of the best practices for welcoming a missionary who will be speaking during your Sunday morning worship service. This past Sunday we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Writing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/How-to-prepare-for-a-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/How-to-prepare-for-a-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/How-to-prepare-for-a-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/How-to-prepare-for-a-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/How-to-prepare-for-a-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":146,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/t-rex\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":1},"title":"T-Rex","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"March 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This evening we spoke at our supporting church, Grace Baptist in Redding. Pastor Franklin has a spectacular collection of fossils that are on display in the foyer of the church.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General Updates&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General Updates","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/updates\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/new-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":2},"title":"New Life","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"May 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is past weekend was our last in Minnesota. We have had a great time staying with Dick and Joy Ivance. Christina translated for the Ivances about 15 years ago when on one of their first trips to Ukraine. They have continued to travel to Ukraine several times a year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General Updates&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General Updates","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/updates\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":380,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/christmas-kids\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":3},"title":"Christmas Kids","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"January 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with our church family at \"Hope for People\". What a blessing to be able to worship our Savior with brothers and sisters! I also had the privilege of preaching. I preached about the Simeon from Luke 2:25. He was a righteous and a devout man who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General Updates&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General Updates","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/updates\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7383,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/ukrainian-christmas-outreach\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":4},"title":"Ukrainian Christmas Outreach","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"January 9, 2017","format":"video","excerpt":"A blizzard hit Ukraine just a couple of days before we planned a big outreach for the community. Sunday, January 8th is the day after Christmas here and it is when we planned a large Christmas festival in our church yard. Two days earlier on Friday the snow storm moved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ministry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ministry","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/ministry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC06647-1024x681.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC06647-1024x681.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC06647-1024x681.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC06647-1024x681.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/DSC06647-1024x681.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3353,"url":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/the-problem-with-short-worship-services-in-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":9422,"position":5},"title":"The Problem with Short Worship Services in the Church","author":"Caleb Suko","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One difference we notice after coming back to America is that Sunday morning worship is much shorter. In my experience most US churches keep their main worship service to somewhere between 60-90 minutes. In contrast most Ukrainian churches \u00a0I've been in will run around 120 minutes. Maybe Ukraine has influenced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Writing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/photo-45.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/photo-45.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sukofamily.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/photo-45.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9422"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9449,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9422\/revisions\/9449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}