Seven Reasons to Go to Church While on Vacation

My family and I are on vacation this week with extended family. We are having a wonderful time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The scenery is breathtaking and the weather is perfect and we are all having a wonderful time relaxing together.

My family and I always plan ahead to attend a worship service every Lord’s Day that we are on vacation, whether we are staying at home for vacation, visiting family or on a “real” vacation like we are now. This practice is not driven by some legalistic notion that I simply ought to be in church on Sunday, but by a real desire to be in the Lord’s presence amidst his people in worship.

Here are my top seven reasons to attend a worship service on the Lord’s Day even when on vacation.

1. To honor God.   This reason stands head and shoulders above the rest and is sufficient in and of itself to compel one to go to church while on vacation. God is worthy of worship at all times and in all places and he commands that we believers gather for public worship, not neglecting the assembling of ourselves. In our day, too many believers hold God in such low esteem that they carry no healthy, biblical “fear of the Lord” in their hearts. And so when they are on vacation, they take a vacation from God as well, as though suddenly their lives during vacation may now be lived without reference to God. May God give us a more Puritan view of the Lord God Almighty who simply must be worshiped without interruption. I have often said to my congregation, “do not take a vacation from God when you are on vacation. And be glad that he never takes two weeks off from you.” Is God such a burden to us that we need a break from him?

2. To keep life ordered around God. The second reason is an issue of discipline. As the hymn writer says, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The discipline of regular attendance at worship services on the Lord’s Day except for times of sickness or true emergency is a powerful tool in keeping one’s life centered around God. We need a day of the week to plan our busy lives around; we need a fixed day to submit our schedules to lest we begin to center our lives around ourselves. Making the commitment to be in church while on vacation forces the vacationer to plan ahead by looking for a church to attend, organizing the travel schedule around worship and maybe even shortening time at the beach. In other words, it keeps vacation time from being all about self-indulgence and emotional escape while reminding us that God is always to be the center of our lives.

3. To teach my child. One way children learn the value of something is from a routine established by parents, for we make regular what is important to us. If I say I love God and they should too, but act like God is something to be vacationed from, I teach them the opposite. My little three year old already is watching what I say and do and keeping a mental journal of how daddy’s actions reveal what is really important to him. She needs to see me leading my family to worship even when it is inconvenient and not do so begrudgingly but with joy and love for a wonderful God. She needs to see me lead her to live against the grain of our self-indulgent culture and against the low standards of many believers. She needs my example to teach her, to haunt her when she is on her own and to prove to her that devotion to God is something that can and must be lived out in practical, routine ways. She needs me to show her that love for God is meaninglessly hollow without practical expression.

4. To witness. It amazes me how people stand up and take notice that we go to church when on vacation. People see you leave the hotel or other accommodations and head out church. They see you go to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night so you can be up on time for worship. They note when you ask where to find a church. And the people you might be staying with are impacted by the fact that even if they don’t go, you do.

5. To experience the joy of meeting other Christians. There is great joy in meeting other Christians in some place other than your home church, in experiencing what God is doing in some area of the world other than your own, in hearing of common struggles, victories and hopes. In world that seems too dark at times, one hour or so spent in someone else’s church reminds me that God’s light is everywhere his people are.

6. To experience a timely word. While I certainly have heard a few dud sermons while on vacation, I have more often heard a timely word from the Lord in a sermon or through some other element of a worship service. It amazes me how readily God speaks to me if I just pay attention! What insights and instruction and direction and affirmation and rebukes I would have missed if I had skipped church while on vacation! What believer does not want to hear from God?

7. To give in to holy desire. Pastor John Piper is famous among believers for writing about  "Christian hedonism."  He makes the point that true, deep happiness is found only in full surrender and service to God. When we are fully enraptured with God happiness is the natural result. As I said at the beginning of this post, I go to church while on vacation because I really want to. My heart wants it. And I figure that giving into a holy desire is rarely a bad thing.

 What do you think? What would you add to this list? Do you wish to take me to task for anything said here? Submit a comment and let’s talk.