As has been my tradition, every sermon that I preach will be posted here. This sermon, Worship as Lifestyle, was given at The Salvation Army Devonport on Sunday 11 October, 2015. The Reading was Amos 5:1-15. 

There are 3600 seconds in an hour, 86,400 seconds in one day, 604,800 in a week and  over 31 million seconds in a year.

To put that in perhaps more realistic terms, we know that there are 60 minutes in an hour, but that makes 1440 minutes in a day, 10,080 in a week, and 525,600 in a year.

All of us, no matter how good we think we are, only get the same number of minutes in a week. So how well do we use those minutes?

On Average – and these are all figures I sourced from the internet so they must be true – we will spend 168 minutes a day watching TV. That’s 1176 minutes during the week, or almost 12% of the week.

The average American spends 128 minutes on either their smart phone or computer. That’s 896 minutes a week, or almost 9% of your week.

You will spend, on average, 456 minutes sleeping each night, that’s over 30% of your week. We’re up over half of our week gone already!

You’ll spend only 66 minutes a day eating, that’s only 5% of your week.

If you’re employed, you will spend 516 minutes a day either working, thinking about work, getting ready for work and other work related activities. That’s 35% of your week. And by my quick maths, that leaves us with less than 10 percent left. How much have I left out?

When I was teaching violin, I would always stress the importance of daily practice to my students. I would get them only once a week. If they were lucky, and received an hour-long lesson, that would be only half a percent of their week. If they were to practice for an hour each day, their time spent learning violin would come to nearly 5% of their week. Continue reading “Worship as Lifestyle” →