Eighteen months ago, Susan and I were able to enjoy a meal at one of the world’s finest restaurants, Eleven Madison Park in New York City. It was a truly amazing experience. The food was exceptional and, paradoxically, left us both content and eager for more. Church* is like a fantastic meal: we need to eat, the food is filling and good, and yet it should leave us desiring more. Sadly, though, church receives some bad press in the media, and even among Christians I fear that we have begun viewing church like a cheap meal at a fast food restaurant, rather than what it truly is. If we hold a low view of church, we should expect our commitment to and desire for church to diminish. If, however, we permit the Scriptures to speak into our assumptions and expectations, and even to correct them, I believe our experience of church will be greatly enriched.
There are perhaps hundreds of compelling reasons why church is too valuable for us to neglect, but here I wish to suggest three reasons
Church is truly amazing. In what other sphere of life can an otherwise disparate group of people meet together and share the most treasured experience in all the world?
We don’t measure the “success” of church by superficial entertainment techniques or even by the degree to which I felt “moved” by the sermon or music. When we meet on a Sunday morning—even when the music is poor and the sermon is inept and the relationships are not as good as they ought to be—we are living the very vision the Old Testament believers longed for. We are experiencing in a tiny way the firstfruits of God’s eternal and perfect purposes.
- We meet to hear the God of the universe speak through his word.
- We meet to praise God for who he is and for his Gospel, and for all that he has done for us.
- We meet to encourage other Christians that they might know Him more and be strengthened to trust and obey Him in the coming week.
- We meet to show the unbelieving world that knowing God is the greatest joy and most fulfilling prospect.
The Bible reveals that the Church is central to God’s mission in the world. Our membership in the church cost God’s own Son his life. We were “bought with his blood” (Acts 20:28). The idea of Christians without Churches is unthinkable to the biblical writers, for to be Christian is to be brought into the household of God:
| Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22) |
We mustn’t take Church for granted. In many parts of the world Churches are illegal and Christians meet under threat of death should they open a Bible together and sing praises to God. Would we travel two hours each Sunday to meet with God’s people? Would we give up something for the sake of meeting regularly with other Christians (a sleep in, a morning round of golf, last minute cramming for exams)? Besides, far from distracting us from the rest of life, it ought to be a highpoint in life, and equipping us for all that will unfold during the week.
Duty and joy are not necessarily mutually exclusive alternatives; in the Gospel we see that they marry, such that duty is joy. The sovereign God summons us to come to him, to eat and drink with him, to rejoice in him, and to rejoice in him together: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isa 55:1) “And again it is said, ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.’ And again, ‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.'” (Rom 15:10-11).
The gospel also transforms our sense of who we are, reminding us of the creator who made us and grafting us into the people of Christ, so that we no longer belong to ourselves (not that we ever really did in the first place!) but belong to Christ and to each other. The Church is “sanctified” and called to be “God’s holy people “(1 Cor 1:2). Acts 20:28 again: the Church was “bought with his blood”. We are not are own, we belong to God and therefore we will only be truly content and pleased when we our lives are conforming to God’s purposes.
This generates a solemn duty and an urgent command: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb 10:24-25)
We might be reluctant to think this way, but when we neglect church we are disobeying God. Choosing absence is sin. Having said that, I appreciate that there may good reason for temporary non attendance: illness, holiday, and sometimes work (although if work/study regularly keep you from church you must either reassess that commitment or find a church that meets at a time where you can participate).
Perhaps part of the issue is that we are making a category mistake. To use the familiar football analogy, we have wrongly assumed that our role in church is akin to the spectator at a football game: I go to the footy occasionally, but my presence or absence doesn’t affect the game. What if, however, I was a member of the team and I made my decisions about whether to attend by the same criteria that the crowd adhere too? I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that the team, coach and crowd are rightly appalled. My point is, I wonder whether we wrongly think of our role in church as members of the crowd, when we ought to understand ourselves as part of the team. Team members don’t sleep in. Team members don’t stay away to catch up on work.
The opportunities are endless, and we rarely know what they will be until we arrive and begin looking around.
- We always have opportunity to grow, because we are hearing the word of God read, preached, sung, and talked about.
- We always have opportunity to serve and to love others. Unless the average attendance of your local church is one, there will be opportunity to serve another person: to welcome them, to pray with them, to offer them a cup of coffee, to encourage them, to take interest in their joys and troubles.
- We always have opportunity to thank and adore God. I get it, sometimes we are grumpy and mad, or hurting and sad, or despondent, and yet the very thing that will rescue us is to turn our attention to God through the Gospel. Praise and thankfulness is a great cure to a sinful or broken heart.
- At the end of the day, if church is about me then my commitment will be shaped by my self-defined needs and wants, and that usually means that church will be squeezed by all the competing pressures, inclinations and aspirations that I have outside the church. Instead, if I let God shape my understanding then not only will I please God, but I’ll find my affections changing and church will become so much more.
——————————
* When I use the word “church”, I am primarily thinking of the Sunday gathering, when all members of a local church are meeting together.
Image: Swastiverma
