Over the last few months, I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several Sunday morning worship gatherings. Recently, I was thinking about one when a guy fell asleep (I’m pretty sure before I took the stage — I hope…) during the service.
It was a wide room, and he was a rather large man, seated somewhere in the middle. In otherwords, it was impossible to miss him as I would scan the audience to make eye contact.
I won’t lie. Deep inside, something in me wanted to stop what I was talking about and ask someone to wake Church Sleeping Man up. When I would raise my voice a bit to make a point, I would focus right on him, hoping he’d snap out of it.
Nothing.
He was practically in a coma.
When I travel, I spend a lot of time in reflection on my flight home. I usually don’t read or write, but pop in my earbuds to some Album Leaf, Explosions in the Sky (sounds like a death wish, I know), or Sigur Ros. No real lyrics, just music and mumblings. I allow myself to nod off a bit into that lucid state where I’m able to just allow thoughts to enter, I process them, and tuck them away.
On this flight home, I found myself not being able to move on from Church Sleeping Man.
Now, I don’t know Church Sleeping Man personally. And what I feel inside (I’m tempted to call it anger, but am too chicken to actually do so) isn’t directed specifically at him. But I do find myself getting really, really upset.
Because Church Sleeping Man represents so much of our culture today. Although we may not actually fall asleep during a church service, many of us are sleepwalking in our faith.
Myself included.
God has so many words for us to hear, so many opportunities to pursue, so many visions to chase, so many people to love, so many lives we can physically save with the resources we have and yet…
We sleep.
We live for the moments when we find ourselves alive, awake, and fulfilling a purpose. But those moments have become special because they are exceptions to our normally sleepy lives.
Sure, we dream a lot…but what do we do with those dreams after we wake up?
I truly believe that God has wired humanity the other way around. When our norm is constantly living in that state of being alive – fully, abundantly. While we’re asleep — and dare I say it…only dreaming — we are being robbed of our very purpose in life.
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24 responses to “Church Sleeping Man”
I teach part-time at a community college and my class is required for graduation so I get a lot of students just doing time. But I teach my subject because I’m passionate so I get offended when students don’t pay attention or put forth even a minimal effort. But you are correct. I am guilty. There are many things that I approach in life with less than minimal effort and I’m sure that others around me scratch their heads in disgust.
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Great post Anne! Thanks for sharing. I feel this when I lead worship ALOT – the desire to shake people and say “don’t you hear what you yourself are singing and saying? do you mean it? aren’t you amazed? or convicted? or something for crying out loud?”
It can be depressing but I know I do it too. I wait for others to open the door for my dreams to become realities, I dream but then say “nah, I could never do that” and I belittle the work God desires to do both in me and through me. I make excuses: people may get upset, nobody is really listening to me, i’m too old, i don’t have enough money, and on and on. I focus on why I cannot do it instead of taking the first step towards saying yes to God. I care too much about my own comfort and what others might think.
OR, quite simply, I am not grounded in God deeply enough to walk with Him every step of the way and I’m focusing way too much on my own efforts.
Time to stop that and say yes a little bit more every single day.
I know we ALL can improve in some area of our lives with this…for me…I am sleeping when I read the Scriptures…that is where I need to wake up!!
Just so you know I used to work shift work and I fell asleep a couple of times when I was really tired after night shift. Don’t take it personally!
You should’ve woken him up. Haha. I’m kidding.
I’ve got this major issue of living in my dreams. And I’ll tell ya why…because in my dreams I see myself awake and alive doing what God gave me to do and I just want to do that already, but God is telling me not to wait. Most days, I honestly have no idea what I’m supposed to be awake and alive to at this very moment and I’m sure it’s not because God’s not telling me. It’s mostly because I’m too busy in day dream la la land to listen. Probably not something I should say out loud or on the internet, but oh well.
Btw-I fell asleep listening to explosions in the sky last night. Love them.
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I don’t remember you coming and speaking at our church. But that guy in our service almost every week. Sounds very familiar. Our guy as sleep apnea (or narcosleepy) But the real point is also very true. We treat our life like it’s mundane and even our church and faith experience.
I know….I am hoping the guy wasn’t legitimately ill…I’d feel like a jerk!
Good word. I think many of us are also asleep because we’re tired. Seriously. Tired because of busyness. “The Devil might not make ya bad but he sure will make ya busy.” Busy doing this and that, busy filling schedules, to-do lists, going from here to there, progress and productivity. So busy we’re reacting to life rather than creating it. For me, it’s been (and still is) a journey of recognizing my busyness and being intentional to set margin in my life so that I can BE and DO versus just respond. Waking up to the fact that God’s call for me is worth so much more.
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I love how you take a real event that happened to one dude and make it applicable in all our lives. I like. I’m really chewing on the thought, “We all dream, but what do we do with that dream when we wake up?”. Great question.
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That’s a good word, sweet friend.
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G-Town represent! (only you and I will know what that means, lol)
The dreaming is the easy part. The doing is the hard part. I guess I have a hard time putting them into action. But, “he who began a good work in you…”
I totally agree with you abt us sleepwalking.. That is the truth in a lot of cases.. We have dreams (I believe these are inspirations given to us by God) that we never act on.. We keep saying.. Oh I’ll do it later.. But maybe in these dreams we have God is saying NOW.. But like you are saying.. We are sleepwalking!! I agree with you!! The time to wake up is NOW..
Good points and some thought-provoking questions.
But in defense of church sleeping guys everywhere, I have to point out that he may have worked the night before. Maybe he was doing good to just BE THERE that day. And I wouldn’t even think that except that my husband works a late shift, and there have been times I wanted to yell in his face for not being alert at church. But then I realized that he was honestly exhausted…but at least he was THERE.
However, I do get your point. I promise. :)
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This is great.
But I wonder if that guy legitimately needed rest and found a place for it in God’s sanctuary. Maybe he has a loud life, a loud home, a loud workplace where he doesn’t get much peace and quiet. That he wasn’t paying attention to you or anyone else on the stage that day doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t where God needed him to be, or that the rest he got wasn’t a gift of grace.
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OK I can totally relate here:
I use to co-pastor a church in TN and one guy would fall asleep EVERY single week in the middle of the service. At first it really bothered me….was I boring, not exciting enough? I spoke to him and asked him what was up and he said he just feels so relaxed in church he could not help it…..
Thinking coffee might have helped!
Anyway I do like the parallel you draw because I agree there are many times it seems we as the church are asleep……scary actually! I feel like I am asleep sometimes, not fully engaged in my faith, not fully awake to the possibilities….
Thanks for the wake-up call!
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Honestly, pretty much all 500 year old Protestant Sunday morning rituals put me to sleep, so I can impathize with this guy……….now if we would operate in our giftings for the mutual building up of the CHURCH assembled(1 Corinthians 14:26) then maybe we would have reason to stay awake :)
I have listened and thought a lot about the status of culture and the Church for a long time. There is a trend that men find Church boring because there is little action. Should we be surprised at their feelings when so many people are not being bold about their faith?
The stereotypical American seeks financial security, comfort, convenience, and quantitative results. I think few of us are exempt from those desires. But the reality is those things have nothing to do with being temples of Christ. In fact, Christ would rather have the opposite. He wants people whose total hope and security lie in Him. And as long as we’re seeking the wrong things (whether we realize it or not) we will find ourselves sleep-walking.
Now it is no coincidence that I use the word ‘sleep-walking’. Because I know a man who is busy serving people with every moment of his life. He seems to be practicing the Christian lifestyle better than almost anyone I know. He truly serves God and others before himself. And it is interesting that this man’s body is sometimes so worn out by His faith, that he finds himself exhausted and barely able to go on. But he manages, because he relies not on himself. His reliance is on God’s life in him.
The question that arises for the individual is “Have I surrendered myself to God? And am I doing that daily?” I think that when we completely surrender our will, a whole lot of problems disappear. When we realize that the source of Good within us (and within our brothers and sisters) comes completely from God –not by our own desire–, we stop kicking ourselves for “not doing good enough.”
great post / reminder. a huge fear of mine is that I will go through life as if i’m daydreaming & miss out on what He may be teaching me
Be careful of judging people–we don’t anyone else’s heart nor the full reality of his or her circumstances. Also, don’t forget that we all need time to process the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom God gives us. We don’t have to be hyper all the time. I know for myself, some of the times when I felt I was doing nothing have led to significant progress in my walk with God. You know, God only asks us to do two things–love Him with everything we have and to love those around us as we love ourselves. And, because I love God and other people, I pray for and be kind to everyone I can.
Once, I was the person who sat down in church while everyone was standing and worshiping. I went to a service at my sisters church and sat down, tired, barely able to stay awake. Happy to be with my sister and in church, but without the capacity to do much else. Some one had the audacity to tell me that she thought God would want us standing up. I really wanted to say “you mean YOU want me to stand up, just because I am not following the crowd I make you uncomfortable!” Never mind the 4 hours of sleep and large amount of pain shooting down my leg from sciatica. She should have taken into consideration where I was spiritually. (still far from God) And for me, to be able to sit when other people are standing should be okay. Worshiping God should not be a series of lemmings jumping off the cliff.
Now, I know your guy was sleeping while you were talking. And its likely he was just being rude. But who knows, maybe he was making an effort and just couldn’t actually do it physically.
Never take it personally Anne.
I had to comment because it struck a deep chord in me, but I am by no means attacking you, I love your blog and all you do!
About that sleepwalking thing…
I’m kinda in that place where I am dreaming, but I know I’m dreaming and want to wake up so that I can get busy with what the dreaming was all about. You know?
Like a nightmare where you tell yourself to wake up wake up wake up before the terrifying event happens? Well I’m gonna flip that to a positive and say wake up wake up wake up before I miss the opportunity God is giving me to ACT on the dreams he’s helping me dream.
I’m probably the only one who gets what I’m saying. But yeah. Short comment being: Right ON Anne. I’m totally down with this!!!
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Anne,
It goes with the territory, preacher chick! :) People have been falling asleep since St. Paul and it’ll never stop. Just preach it and keep on going!
@Shelley – no worries. I don’t think you were attacking me. In the same sense, I wasn’t attacking him. His sleeping triggered me to think about the Church in a parallel way, and that is what this post was about — not about the church guy.
And if someone wants to fall asleep while I’m talking, that’s cool with me. :)
I enjoyed your blog Church Sleeping Man and agree. I’ve been in search of my own purpose for years now (but who’s counting) and lose interest quickly when something doesn’t pique my interest or point towards some purpose for my life.
As a Christian for many years, I am still not comfortable with the fact that God, more often than not, speaks to us in a “still small voice.” What I wouldn’t give if He would occasionally pick up a bull horn and speak loudly as to the direction I should take with my life or if the path I’m on is the right one. I mean with the noise and clamor of the world around us, what good does it do to whisper? I am straining, though, to hear the voice that I know is there.
Church Sleeping Man represents so many of us and, sadly, myself as well. As gifted and as talented a speaker as my pastor is, my boistrous thoughts carry me away to lunch plans or cleaning the house. Unlike Sleeping Man, I am fully awake but not listening for the whisper coming through the words of our pastor that will invigorate and heal a very tired and faltering life.