Why Go to Church?

There is a lot of talk these days about how going to church is no longer necessary. Our technology provides us with preaching on TV, Internet, Iphones and various other communication tools. We can fellowship on facebook, twitter, and other chat rooms. But the best reason that I think a Christian believer should go to church is because Jesus did! Luke 4:16 says that “as was His custom, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath” (emphasis mine). Jesus did not go to church because of what he could get out of it, he went because it pleased God. Our commitment to church every week is not based on if we feel like it or not, but it is based on what God gets out of our going. God wants us to be there – personally- because you and I are the Body of Christ and where two or three are gathered, God is in our midst.

There is much we have yet to learn about the spiritual function of gathering together to worship. Our “church” family is as important, if not more important, than our physical family. Anne Ortlund in her book Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman puts it this way:

Let me tell you about my friend Bruce’s family of schnauzers. We paid a visit when mamma schnauzer had her puppies. The whole family of them were in a playpen in the kitchen. That enclosure was their whole world, and those tiny pups snuggled to their mother for warmth, food, love – everything they needed.

They had no idea that they were totally dependent on a larger family, a human family – Bruce, June, and their children – who were (under God) the ultimate source of the provision of all their needs.

Your physical family can provide you with warmth food and love, but recognize that the true source of godly love, warmth, nourishment, and togetherness comes from a larger family – the eternal family – your faith community.

The Scriptures tell us to use our gifts to nourish the Body of Christ and to draw nourishment from the Body so that all of us (adult singles, young people without Christian parents, and married without spouses) will be able to feel cared for, loved and nourished in God’s beautiful forever-family. When we are loved, fed and prayed for in our church family, the relationships in our physical family are wonderfully healed and nurtured.

Paul holds us, the family of God, to be the highest of all human relationships when he says to the Philippians, “It is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart…. God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more.” (Phil.1:7-9)

In every one of our lives there is a can of worms. There are skeletons in the closet of every human being. We need Christ and we need each other to grow into the people God created us to be. It may be painful or even embarrassing, but God has given us each other to help us grow into the full stature of Christ.