I grew up with a pastor for a father. Sundays were typically hectic and involved a lot of responsibilities, not just for my dad but for everyone in the family. Needless to say, Sundays were not so much a day of rest in my family.
Typically, we practiced Sabbath on Saturdays. It was the only day we could set aside a significant amount of time to rest and enjoy ourselves. I thought this was somewhat unique, but coming to college, I realized that is how most students at Asbury practice their Sabbath. I know more people who take a day of rest on Saturday than Sunday. Sunday often has more commitments (including church ministry), making it far less restful than a sabbath should be. I am not saying that ministry is not life-giving, but it is still work. And it can be hard work.
So instead, many students attempt to use Saturday as a breath of fresh air after a long week of classes and obligations. Then Sunday becomes a day of work and preparation for the next week. Often with that comes the need for campus facilities.
This semester, I have heard from multiple media-communications majors purchasing professional tools and other expensive software because they do so much of their homework on Sundays and don’t have access to the Miller labs. What about the students who need help to afford that? I know from experience how complicated scheduling a film shoot can be. The lack of equipment on Sundays limit options for students; it causes much more stress than rest. Especially at a school that prides itself on its film department, this hindrance affects so many students on campus.
Similarly, music majors need to practice on Sundays, and with the McCreless practice rooms being closed, they only have their living space. Their roommates and neighbors would not appreciate the volume they need to use.
An easy answer is to prioritize the homework, projects, and practice that requires these facilities throughout the weekdays. But with the workload of a full-time college student, jobs, and extracurriculars, students often don’t have time during the weekdays to do this. So if they are forced to, they become more stressed, and the quality of work suffers as a result. Closing campus facilities on Sundays limits students’ ability to complete their work and does more harm than good in pursuing rest.
Not only that but on a small campus there are limited spaces to spend time with groups of people, and with places like the library closed, common areas become crowded, and more often than not, students search for places off campus to spend time, which is problematic.
The Stuce used to offer a space for this. But with the delayed opening, this has remained an issue for many students. Even for students who practice Sabbath on Sundays, it often involves time with friends. It is challenging to find this space with limited fellowship options.
An argument often made for closing buildings on Sundays is that if they were open, students would need to work their campus jobs on a day they usually have off.
But if this option were offered, some students working Saturday shifts would switch to Sunday in a heartbeat and use Saturday as a day of relaxation. Not to mention that students already have to work the front desks on Sundays in the dorms. This does not even include the students that work off-campus jobs on Sundays.
If the issue is encouraging church attendance – an easy solution is to open the buildings later in the day. If campus buildings were to open around noon or one o’clock, student workers would still have time to attend their local church community and be back in time to work.
Nationally speaking, especially in communities like Wilmore, Sunday is considered the Sabbath. It is as if this one day itself were dedicated to rest biblically. But technically speaking, if the Sabbath is meant to fall on the seventh day – that would be a Saturday.
However, in our day and age, I know more and more people who consider the Sabbath a practice to prioritize in whatever way you can, whether your day of rest is a Sunday or a Tuesday. The method of the Sabbath is not bound to one specific day of the Gregorian calendar.
So why are we mandating the closure of necessary spaces in a way that forces Sunday to be the day of rest? Especially when this inconvenience ends up taking away rest from its students? Are we prioritizing a biblical ideal or hindering a biblical practice by reinforcing tradition?
