{"id":1467,"date":"2013-02-10T20:24:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-10T20:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2016-07-28T03:00:41","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T08:00:41","slug":"canceling-services-because-of-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=1467","title":{"rendered":"Canceling Services Because of Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight we will not be having an evening service. That may not be a surprising statement to you because 1) you don&#8217;t go to church; 2) your church normally does not have an evening service; or 3) you normally cancel when weather is questionable.<br \/>\nThis is not normally the case for Liberty.<br \/>\nWe have canceled a Sunday service only one time in the past 4 1\/2 years because of weather.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scquest.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/20130210-142446.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scquest.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/20130210-142446.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"20130210-142446.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Is it right to cancel a service?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few reasons why it is appropriate to cancel a service due to inclement weather:<br \/>\n1. <strong>We do not attend services in order to win an award for the most consecutive services attended. <\/strong>If that is your motivation I pity you. You know that you can&#8217;t take your ribbon to heaven, right?<\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>Services in themselves are not sacred.<\/strong> We gather to worship, we don&#8217;t worship the gathering. We may not think of it that way. If a church decides to cancel a service, or stop Sunday evening services except for every second Sunday on months containing full moons and significant Irish holidays, it does not mean that are necessarily heathen. <\/p>\n<p>3. <strong>Canceling a service can be a way the shepherd cares for the flock.<\/strong> Shepherds don&#8217;t have to make every decision for those under their care, but we must be sure not to provoke them to sin.<br \/>\nIf a pastor has consistently taught and modeled the idea that disciples of Jesus Christ must make it a priority to gather and worship with the body, they should be compelled to be consistent. There is a moral weight here. We must not forget that some of our congregation, in attempting to be consistent, will put themselves in unnecessary danger.<\/p>\n<p>For these reasons I am thankful that we have wise leaders who choose to care for the flock rather than win a ribbon (even if it is one of those big long ones!).<\/p>\n<p>What reasons might you add?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight we will not be having an evening service. That may not be a surprising statement to you because 1) you don&#8217;t go to church; 2) your church normally does not have an evening service; or 3) you normally cancel &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=1467\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34kFn-nF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7012,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/7012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}