“Hi, it’s nice to meet you, lady who is making me late to church.”
I didn’t say that a few weeks ago when my wife stopped my speed walk to the sanctuary so that I could meet one of her friends after dropping off our kids in Sunday School. That probably would have been rude to proclaim, but that was what I was thinking. Standing there watching people stream in the open doors and fill up the seats, I could feel myself getting anxious.
“We’re going to be late. We’re going to be late. Oh the agony, so close but yet so far away. Any second now they’re going to close those doors and we’ll have to sneak in along the baseboards like some sort of rat or hamster scurrying for birdseed that the Acuffs may have left in the garage without thinking that a rodent the size of a small cat would find it, eventually get stuck on a glue trap, scream so loud you could hear it in the house and then get murdered by a grandmother across the street because you were at work and couldn’t come home.” (Whoa, that just got personal.)
And although we weren’t late that day, I know it’s going to happen. We’re going to show up behind schedule and need to sneak into church at some point, so I went ahead and wrote myself a guide on the best way to come into church late. Without further ado:
7 things you need to know about sneaking into church late …
1. Never come in during prayer
Rookie move. Strictly amateur hour. People often think this is a great time to come in, everyone has their eyes closed and no one can see you. Wrong. Lots of people have their eyes open and will see you. Plus, the people who do have their eyes closed have entered bat mode and have enhanced hearing. That’s lose, lose my friend. Never come in during a prayer.
2. Blame your kid.
If you’re so late you can’t sneak your kid into Sunday School and have to take them to big church, don’t miss that perfect opportunity to shift blame. As you carry them down the aisle to your seat, nod your head toward your child in a way that says, “This little guy made us late! What are you going to do though? I love this rascal. Kids will be kids.” Please note that this won’t work if your kid is in the habit of saying things like, “My dad caught up on all the college football scores this morning on ESPN and made us late to churchy.”
3. Pretend you’re a volunteer.
I’m not suggesting you wait until the offering is collected, grab an empty bucket when no one is looking and then come in late as if you’re an usher, but if that happens, it happens. You can also find someone else who is late and pretend that you’re seating them. Walk them down the row and point them to some empty seats, pat them on the back as if to say, “Just doing my job pal, try not to be late next week.” Then while people watch the person walk to their seat, you fade into the crowd and sit down. The bonus here is that you get to look helpful and holy in addition to finding a seat for yourself.
4. Wear black.
If you have to come in during prayer, it would help if you were wearing black and could act like you’re one of those magical stage hands who materialize out of nowhere and shift things around on stage while no one is looking. This might be a little extreme, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to keep a spare one of those little table and chair combos pastors are using in your car. When you show up late, just tell your wife, “Help me with this chair, we’ve got to put this in the sanctuary somewhere when we walk in.”
5. Don’t assume it’s best to walk in while people are singing.
Again, common mistake. Sure, the music is loud and everyone might be standing up which on the surface seems like a good time to walk in. But depending on how charismatic your church is you might have some physical worshiping going on. The last thing you want to add to the adventure of sneaking in to church is the need to dodge arm raisers. It only takes one person doing a quick unexpected double arm pound cake move to your diaphragm as you scoot down the aisle to realize you made a mistake. If you come in during a song, find a restrained section of the audience without any hand raising to sit in.
6. Army crawl if the sermon has already started.
A few weeks ago I spoke at a college that had rows of chairs that were elevated like a stadium. The stage was at the bottom and on the left side was a fire exit door a few feet from the podium. During the middle of my speech, I saw a shadowy figure coming through that door and essentially walk on to the speaking area with me. I was about 3 seconds away from launching a judo chop at what I assumed was a would be assassin when I realized it was just someone coming in late. If the sermon has already started, please army crawl in on your stomach less the pastor sweep your leg like a member of the Cobra Kai Dojo.
7. Aim for the meet and greet.
This is your golden moment. This is where the real magic of a late arrival happens. If you can time your entry to the meet and greet then you just look like any other church attendee that is walking along greeting people. Shake a few hands when you walk in, tell people you’re happy to see them and then sit down when everybody else does. Nothing to see here folks, just meeting and greeting.
Do those feel extreme to you? Perhaps, but then perhaps I just respect the sanctity of an already in progress church service more than you. I’ll pray for you. Is pretending to be an usher a weird way to respect the sanctity of a service? Perhaps. Maybe you should pray for me.
Those are my tips for coming in late to church, what are yours?
Have you ever been late to church?
What do you do when you’re late?
Comments
We have a pastor who judges your spirituality based upon your punctuality. I need extra grace so I come in late. Well actually, I almost hit an elder in the parking lot one time when I was rushing to park my car so I could sneak into the service almost on time. Turns out the elder's family was in a huge argument and the near miss caused everyone to start laughing. He thanked me later for helping get their minds focused.
those are awesome! I personally don't like it when people are late. It's a respect thing. If someone is consistently 10 minutes late, why can't the consistently be 10 minutes early?!
Moral of the story… Don't Be Late!
For me this is all about principal!
we need to slow down and live our lives and stop being in such a all fired hurry! Most of the folks I go to church with barely get to say hi before they are off to do something else after church… I really miss hanging out after church and trying to decide what to do for the rest of Sunday evening and how many people you can get to come join the party. Its like going to a family reunion just for the food and leaving immediately after eating! Come on! how can you pass up all those cheek squeezes and weird old lady kisses from all your grannies and aunties that you haven't seen in a whole 2 years!
I'm totally with you! I wish I had some time to just chill after worship. But we pretty much push people out the door because of parking and the next service starting in 10 minutes…
I’m late to church almost every week. It’s always of course an attack of Satan to prevent my alarm clock from waking me up so I can properly fellowship with other believers.
Anyway, my usual technique is to carry one of those giant Christian type banner flags that we have laying everywhere and I strut in and set it at the foot of the stage and pretend like that was supposed to happen. It usually works minus the grandma tackling accident. But that story is for another day.
…it get's a little difficult to scoot in under the radar of, well, anyone… if the congregation is smaller than 50 people. It's always fun to be greeted by name from the person at the pulpit when you come late, too. Now that about 200-ish people come to our church, arriving late sneakily has become more feasible, except that there always is the pressure from the pastor, who asked his team (which includes us) to make sure we are on time…
If you are on the church staff, work up a good sweat before walking in. It looks like you were taking care of important church matters, which inevitably delayed your appearance in worship, but was necessary for some other crucial church function. It makes you look important but also righteous because you still made it before the sermon started. (of course being late frequently as a staff member makes you just look lazy and unprofessional, so don't make it a habit. You are dispensable after all.)
make a fashionable entrance.if you look confident most people wont judge you
Sadly, our meet/greet time is scheduled at the end, after the final prayer, so smoothly sliding in at that time is just pathetic (though I have known folks who have walked in ten minutes from the end…)
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OMG! <—translation "Oh my GOSH." Not the other word. Hilarious!
I must go to a crazy church. Our congregation is small and people come in late all the time. Sometimes the pastor is late. No one cares. *shrug* I love it.
Pull the fire alarm..no one will notice you're late…
We used to be late all the time. And now we're routinely 15-30 minutes early. Which I adore, because it gives me a chance to catch up with my dad and it's easier to find each other when there's only 100 people in the sanctuary and not 1000.
It's really important not to arrive late when you are, let's say… the church organist.
Oh yes. That means NO prelude, folks. The pastor has to go right into the opening announcements or prayer, and then everyone stares as you enter (through the front door) and open the organ, just in time for the first hymn.
Not that I've ever done that.
Late to church? NEVER… well… only if I'm NOT singing that Sunday.
Our service starts twice if you will. The official start time is 10am, but we start with 14 minutes of extra worship at 9:46 – my favorite part. When I'm not scheduled to serve, it's a FIGHT to be there by 10am – which may include bursting into a sprint during the last 3 blocks between my train and the church. It's the worst phenomenon – Most Sundays I have to be there by 7am – which is not a problem for me.
My team knows this about me – so last Sunday when we had a guest worship team in – everyone on my team saw me slip in at 10am – which was followed by texts, tweets, smiles, and even a laugh or two.
Ahhh… the joys of being fully known in community. 
I have to disagree – the meet in greet poses its own set of prbolems. Specifically, the problem of sitting in someone else's seat if you have those people in your church that get super exctied about meet and great and rome the sanctuary looking for people to welcomine into their church. Nothing is worse than sitting there and then having someone let you know that you are sitting thier seat (that they saved when they arrive dot church on time)!
I was honoring my husband and our anniversary and I did not realize that he was late that. As I finished telling everyone what a great guy he was and how long we had been married. He walked through the back doors for church. 270 heads turned. He has never forgiven me.
One word, friends, and I do pity those of you in newfangled churches without them, but–balcony. The balcony is the latecomer's paradise. Architectural free pass.
Growing up my family was pretty much late every time we visited the church where my grandfather was the pastor. The six of us would come walking in after the service had started and rather than finding a seat in the back where hopefully no one would notice us really, we would cruise alllll the way up to the front couple of pews, walking down the aisle for all to see how late the pastor's family was.
To make matters even worse, there were many of those churches where the parsonage was right next door to the church, and still we would be late. Good times I tell you.
Geez, you people are really hung up on what other people think, huh? My fellow worshippers are not my supervisors and if they are that concerned about my punctuality to a Sunday morning service then perhaps they need to stop and evaluate what mindset they're bringing into the sanctuary.