I’ve learned a phrase from Pastor Christopher Laughlin: BLUF – Bottom Line Up Front. So here it is: please go to church every Sunday from the time you read this through November 10 for the well-being of our country. If you have been worshiping online but can meet in person, please go to church. Of course, if you are sick or unable to get to church, please stay home.
Why am I making this request? Many of us are exhausted by the tenor of our public discourse, appalled by the telling of lies, and afraid of political violence, regardless of the outcome of the election. Going to worship can prepare us for the remainder of the campaign, the election, and the aftermath in several important ways.
During the pandemic, Pastor Betsy Kamphuis observed that attending Sunday worship and behaving on our “Sunday Best” reset us for the remainder of the week. Pastor Betsy mused that, denied Sunday worship, people’s attitudes, interactions, and behaviors devolved. Going to church helps us be our best selves, we might say our child-of-godliness. Our nation needs its citizens to be at their best.
Going to church puts us in a place of being reminded that other people, people with whom we might disagree, are not primarily Republicans or Democrats, Trump or Harris, or even Americans. Other people, people with whom we might disagree, are, like us, children of God, joined to Christ’s death and resurrection, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the Cross of Christ forever, and members with us in the body of Christ. Going to church at least gives us pause to regard one another as siblings in Christ or children of God or as God’s beloved creation.
Going to church provides an opportunity to pray for our country together. And I hope our prayers would get specific. We could pray for safe and fair elections, for the safety of our candidates, for poll workers. Perhaps we can sit in silence and listen for what God is saying to us. Yes, we can go into our room, shut the door, and pray to our father who is in secret. But there is something profound about going into our room together.
Going to church, we hear about Jesus together. I keep returning to verses from Ephesians: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (1: 7–10). God will gather all things up in Christ and no election will stop God. Of course, for us to hear about Jesus, preachers need to preach about Jesus. So let’s commit that we will proclaim Christ crucified as the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1: 23–24).
I’ll be at Faith in Grand Rapids (October 20), Settlement in Gowan (October 27), and Christ the King in Gladwin for Pastor Sprang’s celebration (November 2). If you don’t know where to go, please join me. Wherever it is, please go to church. I truly believe in these weeks it will make a real difference, if only to you.
The Rev. Craig Alan Satterlee, Ph.D., Bishop