When Holly and I met, she was living in Denton, TX, attending Denton Bible Church, where the primary teaching pastor is Tommy Nelson.
Recently, I came across this post he wrote on church etiquette. I've put some highlights from it below that I found particularly helpful. Contemplate and enjoy!
1. Prepare your heart for Sunday on Saturday. Don’t schedule your Sundays so that you are holding God to the clock. Unless absolutely necessary, you should never have to leave a service early. You and I run harried all six days. Put your clock and calendar to rest on Sunday as well as your ox and servant. Rest. Have nothing to get to.
2. Give your wife a break unless she absolutely loves to cook. Make your Sunday afternoon easy for her. If it’s eating out, cold cuts, or leftovers, (Do you know that no Jewish woman could cook on the Sabbath?) make her Sundays a day of rest. You never race home to leftovers.
3. Give yourself time. Plan Saturday night to leave on time Sunday morning. Don’t be in a mad rush cursing your children, frothing at your mate, violating the law. Let nothing abscond with your Sundays.
4. Turn off your cell phone, and as a matter of fact, don’t even bring the thing into the building. Men have conducted business for centuries without being interrupted on Sunday mornings. We can still. Sunday is for God. All else can wait. Unless you are a doctor or pilot, etc. on call, leave your cell phone in the car.
Take a break. Six days you serve the cell phone. On Sunday, give it a rest.
5. Dress properly. We are not just spiritual creatures. Our bodies outside reflect what we feel inside. Your dress reflects your heart. Be neat and properly attired. A woman should not be too low, too high or too tight. A man should not be sloppy. A young person should not draw attention to themselves. Church is to look upwards.
6. Come on time. Punctuality is consideration of another man’s schedule. Even though we start on time, those who come late can create a distraction. And remember that worship involves learning but it also involves all of the life of the body of Christ. The emotional experience of singing and worship is as vital to us as the intellectual experience of learning and the volitional experience of obeying. Be in place when the service begins.
7. Be respectful of others if you have a crying child. A child who screams at the top of his lungs is no problem as long as the mother takes him out. But a continually fretful, whining child becomes a constant drip unto frustration and insanity. Don’t let your child be a distraction.
8. Once you come into the sanctuary and the service begins, do not talk; especially in the back. In a sanctuary that seats up to 700, you may think that you are not being heard. But to those in your vicinity, it sounds like a Tigers/Gamecocks game. Don’t be a distraction to those around you.
9. Our morning services last 60-75 minutes. Leave when the pastor leading the benediction says, “You are dismissed.” Leaving early takes the edge off of the finality of a service. Staying brings closure to all of the time together. Be respectful.
10. Respect the building. Do you know that on Monday mornings our maintenance staff has to pick up the mints that are spit out and have stuck to the carpet or floor? Then we pick up trash and wrappers. I wonder if the culprits would do so in the Oval Office or in the Kremlin or Windsor Castle? And yet they will do so in the house of the saints. Amazing! Clean up after yourself as your mama taught you. Habits build character. Respect the property of others.
11. Texting is not only distracting to those around you, but it is downright sacrilegious. We are to “in humility receive the word implanted” and “as newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word.” Texting when one should be listening is a sinful and dishonoring thing in the presence of the explanation of holy scripture. In a court of law if one’s cell phone rings or one is seen texting, they will be fined for contempt. How much more disrespectful is it to Him who is the very source of law?
