Do you skip church if you have guests?

[TheOrigFV45]

Just that - if your guests are not church goers do you still go?
We are the guests, leaving for home at 11am.
DS2 said he doesn't want to go to church and it got me wondering what people generally do.

Just curious how the must go every Sunday people would do if you had to work Sunday ?

Genuinely curious.

@starlight456 if it were me I’d just find a late/early service. Or If genuinely there is an honest reason you can’t make it - that’s fine!

It upsets me when I see people write things like “imaginary friends” “fictitious non-existent beings” - I find it really disrespectful.

Starlight a lot (all?) of Catholic Churches have a mass on Saturday evening. This is considered the first Sunday mass of the week.

Our church had a 6pm Saturday mass, and a 9 and 11am mass on Sunday. There would also be more than one mass on days such as Good Friday.

I'm terribly sorry that you had that experience growing up. There are good and bad Catholics just as there are good and bad people. Sexual abuse should not be tolerated in any form and I hope he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

What I meant was that as a practicing Catholic, we believe that we are a part of a body. The body of the Church. Hence, I am as much the 'Catholic church' as my priest. Intrestingly, under dire circumstances, laymen are permitted to baptise a non-catholic (with permission from the person). Basically, when I do good things for others, that is the 'Church' doing something good. It's still me but I'm a part of the Church.

Anyway, it's great that you (along with many non-religious people) do great things for others. It's all about helping someone in need regardless of religion.

Absolutely agree that religion shouldn't be forced on someone. If a guest wants to come with me, I will make them feel welcome. If they want to stay away, that's fine. They are my friend, not my puppet.

I think that athetists sometimes don't quite get in these discussions that I don't believe that there is a 'fictious imaginary being'. To me, God is a very real, very present being. I'm not choosing to ignore a friend to go and worship a cracker and wine. Everything, I go to church, I am meeting with God and fulfilling what I believe to be His commandment.

It's redundant to say that we are going off to chat to our imaginary friend. That's not what my relationship to God is.

@Starlight456

Speaking as someone who is a Christian and has always gone to church, there is no church I have been to that has an issue with people having to work on Sundays. It's accepted that it's part of life in this country in the 21st century. Most churches have evening services or midweek home groups.

I feel the same way, @Rose87777 but I'm afraid that on MN you have to just get used to it, there will always be someone who sneers about 'imaginary friends' and 'fictitious non existent beings'.

Thank you . I thought church was just Sunday mornings 😳. I still think of church as little house on the prairie.

We were never bought up to go to church so really no experience

"Thank you . I thought church was just Sunday mornings 😳"

Many of them do only have Sunday morning services Starlight.

That’s like saying your guests are more important than Jesus , the man who died to save us.... who is more important than him??
Real people are more important than some made up story used to control, discriminate and demean people

Thankfully this isnt an issue we have, no one in our life attends church, not even christmas or easter

@squeekums

The point is that for christians, Christ is absolutely a real person. Ultimately, if you believe that Christ is real, then no one is more important than Him.

Just as you can't fathom belief in God and a 'made up story', many Christians throughout the world can't fathom not believing in God.

@WhatisFreddoingnow
Yeah your right, i cant fathom people putting an unproven ideal above the actual real people in front of them. To me that is insane.
If family or friends did that to me and put a myth above me or anyone, a real person, id question the relationship with them honestly.

@squeekums
Again, to you it is a myth. To me, it's a reality.

Just as I would question my relationship with someone who wanted me to choose between my religious beliefs and them.

And as mentioned before, it's an hour in a local church on a Sunday not running away to be a missionary whilst you have guests.

I would take my guests to church

It upsets me when I see people write things like “imaginary friends” “fictitious non-existent beings” - I find it really disrespectful.

There are about 2500 gods worldwide, including a group in Nigeria who believe god is a giant ant the the planet Earth is the ants excrement.

You no doubt think 2499 of them are made up nonsense. The reason you think they are made up nonsense is the reason others think yours is made up nonsense.

No one owes any religion any respect. Religious people are owed tolerance, they shouldn't be abused or harmed for believing what they choose to believe. But no one has to respect those views.

@Crafy1905 the difference being I wouldn’t come and belittle their beliefs in a place where one of them had asked for advice from other people practicing that religion... I’d probably just leave them to it!

What would Jesus do? Probably not invite guests if he knew he’d ‘have’ to go to church the next day and leave them behind... he probably wouldn’t make them feel guilty or judge them either

We don’t skip church unless someone is very ill. Guests are welcome to come with us, stay home, find an alternate activity....it’s not complicated!

It upsets me when I see people write things like “imaginary friends” “fictitious non-existent beings” - I find it really disrespectful

1. I have no respect for religion or the views held by its adherents
2. Your god(s) either exists or they don't. An anonymous stranger making what you perceive to be a 'disrespect' comment doesn't change that iota.

I’d probably listen to the live stream of one of our services on the internet.

@commonpeoplelikeme
Actually, I would expect that Jesus would want us to take the opportunity to gently evagenlise.

But it is good that I haven't seen a single Christian on this thread saying that they would judge or expect a guest to go with them! The only judging that I have seen is some non-religious people judging Christians for following their religious beliefs at the detriment of leaving a guest alone for an hour. Although the vast majority have been lovely saying that they would be fine with it or would go with their Christian hosts.

I think the problem between showing disrespect/intolerance through using 'imaginary friend is the use of language. By all means, don't agree with my religious beliefs but I think it is a courtesy to use language which shows respect not to the religious beliefs but to the person. If someone found my language was disrespectful to their beliefs, I would choose not to use those words as a courtesy to that person. I am free to not believe in their beliefs but it is an act of love and courtesy to that person.

There's lots of insulting language that I could choose to use against non-religious people's lack of belief but I don't because it's not kind.

@Starlight456
Mine isn't a 'must go every Sunday' church but it's my preference to do that. Although I can be asked to work on a Sunday, in practice I've found that work are flexible - I was asked to work on a Sunday earlier this year to do a two hour slot. So I just told them that was fine as long as it was after 1pm.

@WhatisFreddoingnow
Yes what you say is kind of true but I find it hard to understand how adults honestly believe that skipping church is negative thing or that they take the bible as gospel. I mean really? I mean the scriptures are so old, translated so many times and interpreted in so many ways. Do you really believe Noah saved all the animals that walk on this earth? Or that we started with Adam and Eve? I know not all Christians believe this but there are many out there that think so... Even interpreting Shakespeare was bloody hard back at school!

I don’t, but do not expect anyone else to go unless they want to.

@Commonpeoplelikeme

It is what is expected of Catholics (I can't talk too much about other denominations as don't feel that I know enough to comment). In reality, do all Catholics go to church every week? Absolutely not. However, it is our requirement set by the Church. If we miss church for an invalid reason, then we are expected to go to confession before we take communion again.

As to the Bible's validity, that's a whole huge separate complex discussion but worth noting that Catholics aren't sola scriptura (we don't take a literalist perspective of the Bible). We get our teaching from the Church as well as we believe that it was set up by Jesus and the Holy Spirit guides its teachings.

I've actually never met a Catholic who literally believes in Genesis. In fact, it was a Catholic priest who came up with the idea of the Big Bang theory. There's a rich history of Catholic scientists and science and faith are absolutely not in opposition to each other.