Scattered Sundays was a new phrase when we first started coming to Missio. Growing up in the church I had never heard of an idea such as encouraging your entire church to find ways to worship other than at the church building. For me, I was taught implicitly that worship was tied to the church gathering. A narrow view of worship I know...so when I first heard Missio talk about Scattered Sundays it was strange to me.
My gut reaction was “That’s nice. Everyone could probably use a week off from church.”
Narrow, I know....The reality is for me God was beginning a work of redeeming what rest is in His eyes through Scattered Sundays. He was beginning to give me a vision of what a holistic view of enjoying him tastes, feels, looks, and sounds like. What follows is by no means a one size fits all. It’s a story about a journey my family and I have taken to understand how to worship and rest well. It’s a story that we are smack dab in the middle of still...so please don’t read this as a how to guide. Read it as a story.
When we first started practicing Scattered Sundays we were part of an MC and we began doing Scattered Sundays with others in our MC.
This was extremely helpful as these families and individuals had been a part of Missio much longer than us and had been practicing Scattered Sundays more than us. So each month, we tagged along. Sometimes we ate meals at their homes, sometimes we hiked, sometimes we made pizza and watched a movie. Having community that invited us along on Scattered Sundays was extremely helpful because it gave us language and tangible experiences for those Sundays we didn’t gather at the building. There’s no handbook of do and don’ts for Scattered Sundays so I know for me, in the beginning of trying to practice, at times it felt like, “ahhh is this okay? Does this count as worship? This feels like cheating.” Having people show us what Scattered Sundays look like for them was beyond helpful.
After practicing it with others for a season, we began to practice on our own as a family.
Initially this was difficult, because as a family of four my wife and I tried to appease everyone in the early stages realizing we all enjoy/find rest in different ways. What rest and enjoying God looks like for me is very different than our 5 year old. So we tried lots of things....we took trips up north to hike in cooler weather, we grabbed doughnuts and went to new parks, we did true story scavenger hunts. We tried something different each week but there was one common thread among them all. We prepared. We would spend Saturday prepping for Scattered Sunday. We would make sure that laundry, dishes, yard work, lunches for Monday were made, everything was done and prepped so that we could lean into what God had for us rather than get distracted and busy. As we prepped on Saturday there began to be an excitement about what Scattered Sundays we’re going to hold for us as a family and as individuals. Like a gift you knew was coming, you just weren’t sure what it would be.
One of the rhythms we did for many Sundays, not just Scattered was that Albany and I would make focaccia. Bread making became an important practice for me during Scattered Sundays. Bread making is naturally a slow process and it forced me to slow down when I typically wanted to go go go on the weekends. Albany and I did this every Sunday for probably 8-10 weeks in a row. A lot of bread I know - but we found others to enjoy it with and to bless neighbors with.
Looking back at when we first started to practice Scattered Sundays, I didn’t know what would give me rest.
Looking back at when we first started to practice Scattered Sundays, I didn’t know what would give me rest. The real rest - like the rest you feel in our soul because you’ve experienced something so life giving you feel refreshed. What gives my wife’s soul rest is different than what gives my soul rest - but the same Creator God provides that to both of us.
Now when we have a Scattered Sunday there is always one thing we incorporate regardless of what we’re doing - space. We’ve done our best to push aside everything else that there is (chores, phones, etc…) and to allow space to create, read, listen, and reflect. For us, it’s in space that we each have found rest and been able to worship Him.
May you find rest.
Nick Johnson