Light-Switch Christianity

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Sunday morning meetings. In fact, I have a post coming, next week, that has to do specifically about this topic. But today I wanted to write about what I call “Light-Switch Christianity.” I made up this term while thinking about what happens on Sunday morning. I felt it was a lot like the old sexual allusion about turning on and off your spouse like a light switch.

I realized that this is exactly what happens on Sunday mornings. A group of people get up every morning, do a certain routine to meet in a special place. At the group I last met with, they would all get together to listen to a short little greeting and a sweet little story. This is the get-ready-for-church light-switch. Once it is on you can turn on the other light switches. If you miss this meeting, don’t worry there is an override switch that we’ll talk about momentarily.

At the end of the get-ready-for-church light-switch they flick on the time-to-learn light-switch. Turning on this switch moves everyone from their current location to a different location where they can sit down and be taught a bible lesson during Sunday School. At the end of the Sunday School lesson, a bell usually rings which causes everyone to move back into the room they were just in, here they wait for the next switch to be turned on. This switch is the override switch.

The override switch is important because not everyone comes to the early morning light-switch event, and often miss Sunday School too. What happens is a music leader starts to play music and everyone starts singing. Whether you are in the mood or not, the override switch is turned on and you are in full blown “worship.” This light-switch is most important because it prepares you for the next light-switch, the sermon light-switch. As soon as the music is done and you have reached your full worship potential, the sermon light-switch is turned on. Flicking this light-switch causes everyone to sit and remain absolutely silent (apart from saying “amen” or “Mmmm” in agreement). There is no more need to sing, since you have hopefully reached your worship potential and are ready to truly hear the word of God preached. At the end of the sermon, someone says a prayer and all the light switches are instantly turned off.

Turning off all the light switches means it is time to do what you want. The majority of the people get up, leave the building, and go to their respective homes or go out to lunch with their families and friends.

This is what I call Light-Switch Christianity.

P.S. When I thought about writing this post I did a search for “light switch Christianity” on Google. Oddly enough the first hit was this Christian “worship” band: http://www.lightswitchband.com/.