A Holy Convocation?

In the many times that the Bible talks about the seventh day Sabbath, there is only one verse that says that it should be a holy convocation:
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no worktherein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. Lev. 23:3


Convocation: a sacred assembly called together http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H4744&t=KJV


So, we gather together on the Sabbath day, and we go through our process of waking early, dressing up real nice, and then we enter into the sanctuary ( If you're like me, just in time for divine hour.lol) .Then we follow the order of service: sing during the processional, listen to the call to worship, sing the Praise God from whom...., listen to the preacher pray, sing the doxology,  listen to announcements, listen to the pastor welcome, sing the welcome song, Children's story  building fund, Hymns of Praise, Intercessory Prayer, offering, scripture reading, special music, etc. All of this intermingled with standing, sitting and optional kneeling.

As you can probably tell, this sounds like a whole lot of formality. I believe in ordered worship but some things are not necessary in a worship service. Like the ridiculous standing and sitting over and over again. Don't get me wrong! I believe God is worthy of respect. But it is not commanded for us to stand a certain amount of times in worship. Some things are not necessary. And if I am not mistaken, I believe a lot of the things we have in our worship service like the Gloria Patri as our doxology and the standing for the processional are Catholic in origin. Do the extra things make the service holy? I do not believe so. God makes us holy and therefore it is He who makes our services Holy.

The high point of the divine service is " The Preached Word". Oooooh. (sarcasm) Don't get me wrong. I like sermons. And the preaching of the word is necessary.  But I do not believe that our services should center around the preaching. A minority come to Wednesday night prayer meeting, Sabbath school, Bible study and to the the youth programs. The main focus of the attendees is the preaching. Why not make the focus a Bible Study session or a testimony session during the divine hour? Crazy, huh?

Without any actual change in the running of church services, it becomes tradition and ritualistic. As I was visiting this site, http://www.thesabbathchallenge.com/, the writer of the blog makes a list of Sabbath activities, and none of those activities involve going to formal worship session in a church. Now, I do not believe this person is an authority on how Sabbath should be kept, but I believe that it is a rude awakening to those who keep Sabbath by ritually going to church every week. One lady in response to a blog entry spoke about wanting her children to enjoy the Sabbath.  She says,

 "I wanted to make it a very special day for them, not just church and reading the bible. I wanted them to develop an enjoyment for the Sabbath and our wonderful Lord."

When you're dating someone, you do not do the same thing every time you meet them. You do something different and interesting. Starting next month, I'm going to take one Sabbath off from church to do something involving my Creator that is different and interesting. The possibilities are endless. Quite honestly, I hope I do not sleep the whole Sabbath away. LOL. Will I still assemble with believers? Sometime during the day... LOL.