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Our churches and families need to return to a Sabbath consciousness that can provide a platform for countercultural witness. Without being legalistic about it, Christians have a duty to protest the oppressive tyranny of time and productivity and an economic order that tries to squeeze inordinate productivity out of people's energies.

Such a witness will take varied shapes, but along with church worship it should be characterized by a cessation from paid employment, a respite from commercial activity, an investment in relationships, a receptivity to divine wisdom, a celebration of creation, and intentional acts of kindness.

Churches and small groups should experiment with mutual covenants to take back their Sabbath time. And in the course of experimentation and mutual feedback, they will find a blessing.

Such efforts will take mutual support and planning, because our lives are swept along by the currents of modern culture. Our culture fosters an ethic of accumulation, which teaches us to value ourselves primarily in economic terms. It even teaches us to rate our leisure by the number and the quality of our toys rather than by the restorative quality of our play. We are also shaped by a utilitarian ethos that teaches us to justify every activity in terms of its usefulness to us and others.

There is a gratuitous quality to Sabbath rest. It is antithetical to utility. The celebration of the goodness of God and of his creation needs no further justification.

The Charlotte Observer's Garfield suggests that, "in a twist," the largest Christian retail chain opening on Sundays may "stir some of us to take a stand against the routine of everyday life."

"Sunday is ours," he says. "You can't have it."

Rest and leisure are God's, we say. And the world can't take them away.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christianity Today's Weblog reported on Family Christian Store's announcement to open on Sundays.

So did the Dallas Morning News.

Family Christian Stores posted a letter about its decision on its website.

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November 2003, Vol. 47, No. 11