–– Joe Shoko

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

In the Southern African country of Zimbabwe, Harare lies as a rapidly growing capital city that is bursting at the seams. Many years ago the population was officially estimated at 2 million. A few more censuses have been taken since then, but it is hard to come up with the true figure as the Government of the land is inadequately resourced to effectively carry out a successful census of the people of Harare, not to mention Zimbabwe! The population is something to behold, especially on Sundays. Yes, that’s correct, on Sundays! 

Normally, weekdays in big cities are characterised by the hooting of cars and the calling out of touts who are either selling oranges and apples or directing the masses to their ‘ride home’. The CBD sounds like a symphony of migrating bees, there isn’t much space to maneuver and everyone is in a rush to get somewhere. Sadly, this too is the status quo of Harare on a Sunday. When the rest of us are coming from gathering with the Lord’s people, the CBD is busier than ever. I could be accused of making sweeping statements or judging wrongly, but based on what has been happening on the ground, the hoards of Hararians are not coming from church, but are trading! In other words, for many people, the best day to go for any sort of shopping is a Sunday. 

I suggest two possible contributing factors for this: 

1. The Domino Effect of the COVID-19 Lockdowns 

The COVID-19 shutdowns deserve to have their own chapter in church history. For many, this was a confusing time – churches split, people lost relatives and friends to bitter feuds, fights and death. It was not long after the pandemic spread that churches all over the world including our beloved Zimbabwe were shut down by overreaching Governments. The effects of these measures had devastating consequences for the church. Some professing Christians to this day have not gathered with the saints. Priority lists got shuffled; buying, selling, and getting ahead of the pack became a good enough reason to put gathering with believers on the back burner. The church was said to be ‘unessential’, thus the ‘essential’ took precedence as common practice. 

Once man is left to his own will, the extent of evil he is capable of has no bounds. We see this with the prophet Nehemiah in the Bible. When bringing reforms to Jerusalem, he noticed that the Sabbath, a day of rest and worship for the Israelites had been turned into a day of commerce and industry. Nehemiah took this seriously. His words are recorded as follows in Nehemiah 13:17-18, “Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?  Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” Sabbath-breaking was a major reason for Israel’s exile (Jer 17;19-27; Amos 8:4-6) 

During the lockdowns, a lot of churches—whether implicitly or explicitly—said to their congregants, “You can do everything else but gather with others for worship.” 

2. The Church’s Disregard for Lord’s Day Worship 

The 21st-century church is plagued by secularism and individualism. Accountability was long thrown out of the window. The disregard for the Lord’s Day worship services is evident. The wave of liberalism has rendered many pastors and church leaders passive and fearful to the extent that a congregant who says they missed church because they were doing laundry or taking their kids to swimming trials is nodded at in approval. Driven by the desire to be liked, pastors have sent the sheep in their care to the abattoir. We have told our kids, that marathons and football are way better than gathering with the old saint confined to a wheelchair—to worship the triune God. Are we surprised when our pews are empty and men are making money? Are we surprised when the world views the Gospel as impotent and doesn’t take the coming judgment and the present wrath of God being revealed from heaven seriously? In a place like Zimbabwe, the high cost of living and the scarcity of employment have ensured that many take employment to be much more important than the ordinary means of grace appointed by God. The Lord’s Day has lost its meaning and value here.

How can we respond to this? Judgment starts with the household of God. That is Paul Washer’s point in his book, ‘10 indictments against the modern church.’ Churches must acknowledge their sin corporately and seek the Lord’s aid! The consistency of gathering for worship on Sundays must be demonstrated practically and emphatically taught in pulpits. The household of God is the vehicle in which the Gospel and faithful living are transported into society.  If the church stands by and folds its hands, the corruption and evil in society will only grow. In a modern world, historical creeds and confessions are seen as outdated and retrogressive by the masses. But, unbeknownst to those starved of such delicacies, they are of importance because they serve as a guide and standard of historical and biblical theology. The men and women who have gone before us understood the importance of the Lord’s Day, they upheld it as holy and took time to rest and worship God, we must, if we are to be impactful for Christ take heed and follow suit lest we lose our children and their children to the ways of the world.