How I Turn an Average Sunday into an Awesome Monday

Sunday came and went.  You wanted to be jazzed up about worship but so many things got in the way.  If your family is anything like mine, Sunday mornings are rarely calm and peaceful.  

I’m typically the Planner.  My role is to keep everyone on track, at least that’s what I tell myself.  I bark out reminders about time and generally keep the trains moving.  My specialty: the Countdown, that mystical journey from breakfast to actually getting in the car to go to Church. It usually goes like this:

• 20 minutes till we leave!
• We have only 10 minutes left so get yourselves together!
• That’s it! Why am I the only one who cares about getting to Mass on time?! (Notice the question mark AND the exclamation mark- nice.)

Sadly, my role as Planner too often leaves me frustrated and stressed.  By the time we get to church, I need a break.  If the homily is less than stellar, Sunday just seems to fall flat.  

Can you relate?

Maybe you’re the Planner like me.  You may also be the Pacifier, another title for the one who packages up snacks and sip cups for small kids.  My wife, she’s the Calmer, an expert in “everything’s ok sweetie”.  This is the perfect counterpart to my increasingly anxious point of view.  Then there's the Commisioner.  This role is summed up in various threats including but not limited to manual labor for the rest of the day or a suspension in privileges for an entire week.  

So what to do if you face a Monday when Sunday was less than inspirational?  Let’s face it- this happens a lot.  Too many of our churches are mediocre or just limping along to meet the needs of the busy professional who faces a boatload of email, meetings and stressors come Monday.

take your faith with you into Monday and make a difference

Here are three suggestions for turning an average Sunday into an awesome Monday: 

Be honest with your expectations.  Did you put all of your faith eggs into the basket of your priest or minister?  When he came up short, did you blame him?  Instead of pointing the finger, be honest with yourself.  Did you read the Gospel ahead of time and did you get up early in order to prepare yourself for worship?  How much time and effort did you put into worship?

1. Resolve to have a quiet time first thing on Monday.  This way, you’ll be sure to get your compass in order.  I recommend Give Us This Day or Magnificat if you’re dialing in to the daily Mass readings.  (Full disclosure: I write for Give Us so I’m biased.)  Sharpen the pencil of your journal writing or go deep with a digital journal like Day One for iOS.  
2. Greet the first person you meet at work as if they didn’t get to church on Sunday.  You may be the only Christian they know, so get out there and act like it.  So you’re preacher didn’t go for the gusto on Sunday.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t take your faith with you into Monday and make a difference.

Whatever you decide to do after a flat Sunday, always remember that God is there on Monday just as much as He is on Sunday in a bright and happy church.  

What can you do on Monday to make up for a flat Sunday?

Photo courtesy of EM

The Courage to Dig Deep (again)

It's been a tough couple of weeks. Between practicing calendar triage and slogging through a rough patch in my morning devotions- I've just been out of sync. By Sunday of this past weekend, I knew something had to change.

I decided to dig deep and make an internal change. This week would have to be better, different, more productive, more positive. It would be because it could be.

That's the thing about productivity (actually and faith, social dynamics, even working out)- a new week is just waiting for you to grab it and make it different from the past one.

In my son's little league games, we coaches often yell from the dugout to a player who is struggling at the plate, "Dig deep son, you got this."

That advice applies to us as well- dig deep. Again.

Putting the Holy in Holy Week

For Christians around the world, this week is called "holy" in so far as it leads up to Easter. The culmination of the week is typically called the Easter Triduum, or Easter Three Days and thousands of people will commit their lives to Christ and publicly become Christian by the end of the week. Through a series of ancient practices, people who were once on the outside will step into a unique space called "holy".

Still, just because a week has a powerful adjective in front of it (holy) doesn't mean that it will magically transform you.

Imagine the week leading up to the Super Bowl and your boss calling you in to tell you that you just got a huge raise. "Actually it's a super raise," she tells you. Or imagine the week of Thanksgiving and countless cars pull up in front of your suburban home, all with handwritten letters telling you how thankful they are of you.

It just doesn't happen that way.

So what does put the holy in holy week? In my mind it's the sacred dance between you and God- that relationship that is both dynamic and still. It's personal and concrete and real. It's that moment in your day when you want to quit but your faith informs you to keep on keeping on. It's that conversation that you could go negative with but your conscience tells you otherwise. It could be a quiet moment when you talk to God out loud, even if it's been a while.

When we are in intimate relationship with the God who brings Easter to the world, now that's holy. Let's be praying for each other this week.

Photo courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659

Where the World and the Church Intersect

What kind of Church do you have?

It's easy for the Church to bow to the alluring callings of the world.  It feels cool to have a Church that is staying up with the times.

I'll be the first to admit that I'd like to go to a Church with a coffee shop in the lobby and an ATM machine just outside the door.  I wouldn't mind a Church that helped me with car repair or a Church that actually took the poor seriously.  It would be nice to see a Church that valued preaching every week and not just at Christmas.  Imagine a Church that had great music all the time and not just when the choir really prepares extra hard.

This wish-list sounds lavish, I know.

God created the world and it's our job to help Him redeem and co-create it.  Whenever I hear someone rail against secularism, I try to listen carefully to see if they see the world as a totally barren place or one with the capacity for renewal. (I know, this is not a habit of normal people.)  This world-or-church paradigm is, I think, somewhat of a false dichotomy.

There is a soft spot for where the world intersects with the Church.  This just might be the place where the Gospel is needed the most.  Isn't that what it means to be "in but not of the world" as St. Paul preached?

Worldliness has been part of my own Advent journey this year.  Instead of letting the stuff of the world stress me out (be honest, when you see your neighbor putting up his Christmas lights, don't you feel a nudge to do the same?), I've gone with the flow and tried to take things more slowly.  It's not that I'm shunning the world but rather trying to respond appropriately.

My lights won't go up until this weekend.  I don't plan on sending out Christmas cards.  My co-worker gifts are all getting the same  gift (I ordered 10 copies of Jim Collins' book, Great by Choice).  I'm going to a Mass on Christmas eve at a place that I know will have inspiring music.

And guess what?  I feel great about all of this.  I think Christmas will be meaningful this year because our family has been intentional about Advent and how we see the intersection of the world and the Church.

It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.

Forget the Storyline in Your Head

I met with a spiritual advisor this week who told me of an old Buddhist tactic for getting your spiritual life back on track:  forget the storyline in your head.  As we talked more about this, he explained that culture, background, life experiences- all of this creates a narrative that can seep in and derail us when we are trying to make spiritual progress.

For example, you miss a few days of prayer and your mind starts moving in the direction of, "I must be a bad Christian if I can't even pray each day, etc."

Or, your workout regimen is getting stale and your mind starts into a story like this, "Keep this up and you'll end up with heart disease and 20 lbs. overweight, etc."

Forget about it.  This is not to say that we shouldn't pay attention to the consequences of our actions.  We should.  On the flip side, we might do better to forget the storyline in our head and just begin again.

That's a moment for God to break in and make real progress.