Church Should Be
Your Excuse for Missing Everything Else
I am under the unwavering conviction that unless I am genuinely ill, people
are in the throes of death, my legs are rendered inoperable, or we are trapped
in our house, church attendance is mandatory. I will not miss it. Even when
I’ve had to miss it under those circumstances, which is quite rare indeed,
I have hated it. However, for the sake of being completely transparent, this
was not always the case, especially early on in my faith. There was a point
in my life where I consistently worked on Sundays. I was a Christian and had
been for only a couple years at that point, yet I considered myself to be a
faithful Christian who was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I had no
other means of income that I was bringing into the family at that time. My wife
worked, but we needed both streams of income to make ends meet and care for
our newborn—and yet there was a steadily growing conviction in my heart
that I should be coming to church every single Sunday.
While the argument could be made that it was necessary for me to miss due to
the circumstances I found myself in, the reality was that I needed to swallow
my pride, get another job that could allow me to attend church on a weekly basis,
and just be found faithful to come. At some point, the conviction came to me
that church was a non-negotiable. What’s more than this is that I came
to believe church attendance is a non-negotiable for every Christian. The reason
this is so is that I believe the New Testament teaches that our time together
as believers in formal, corporate worship, is to be one of the most precious
things we partake in as Christians. I believe that regular attendance is so
important that it reveals our hearts and priorities. It reveals much of what
we treasure, and likewise, much of what we don’t. It especially reveals
what we understand about the person of Christ and His saving work upon the cross.
Right then and there is where I lost several of the readers.
This is one of those areas where many people have it settled in their minds
that church attendance is optional. They can miss here and there without any
large repercussions to their spiritual well-being, and their own families will
not be any worse off either. However, the reality is that I have never known
a casual attendee to thrive in any meaningful capacity. I have yet to meet another
pastor/elder that can testify to the exemplary faith of the professing Christian
who abdicates regular church attendance. I have witnessed seasons of growth
from them, yet I have simultaneously witnessed a stunted growth because invariably,
they are sporadically absent from the ordinary means God has given them for
their maturity, encouragement, and perseverance in the Christian faith. More
often than this stunted growth though is no growth at all, or worse, a “back-sliding”
of sorts.
At the onset, I will clarify that there are extenuating circumstances that allow
for people to miss church. There are always exceptions to the rule, but exceptions
exist as exceptions because they are not the rule. Exceptions to the rule prove
the rule. Often, people capitalize on the exceptions to the rule because they
have no real intent to be found faithful to the rule itself. Thus, they can
confidently assert there are valid reasons to miss church, and thereby assuage
their conscience. I would argue that not only does this fundamentally misunderstand
the point of why the body of Christ gathers together to worship corporately
on Sundays, but the thing which garners their focus is the wrong thing. We ought
not to be looking for all the reasons we can miss church. We ought to be looking
for all the reasons we should come to church.
Instead of trying to find ways we can settle our conscience by neglecting the
assembly of the brethren, we ought to highlight the very reasons that coming
to church regularly is a benefit to our souls. We ought to find delight that
we can be united in a local body that functions together in service to one another
(1 Cor. 12:12-27). In this unique giftedness being exercised among the members
of a local church, particularly through the gifting of teachers, we then come
to grow in maturity as we attain to the unity of the faith and knowledge of
the Son of God (Eph. 4:11-13). These teachers also equip us for works of service
for the edification of that local church body (Eph. 4:12), which in particular
is expressed through bearing one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), encouraging
one another (1 Thess. 4:13-18; 5:11), building each other up in our most holy
faith (Jd. 1:20), pushing one another on in perseverance to the end (Heb. 10:23-25),
and pouring out compassion (Eph. 4:32), forgiveness (Col. 3:13), love (Jn. 13:34;
1 Jn. 4:7), brotherly devotion (Rom. 12:10)—and even simply putting up
with one another (Eph. 4:2).
How can we be found to not only benefit from these things, but be a blessing
to our brothers and sisters in Christ if we are regularly missing church? Can
we be said to really understand the importance of these things if we are willing
to miss out on these benefits in favor of other things, even if only every once
in a while? The reality is that we cannot. You cannot even within the company
of “two or more” other Christians, for very good reason. Not only
does Matt. 18:15-20 have nothing to do with a bonafide definition of the church,
God has not designed for these things to be worked out amongst only those whom
we would like to be numbered among.
Beyond these “one-anothers” mentioned above, it cannot go without
being stated that another key aspect to attending church regularly is being
found in a position of submission to one’s elders (Heb. 13:17). The author
of the book of Hebrews issues a straightforward command to obey your leaders,
but to do so in an attitude of humility and genuine submission. The reason being:
they give an account for your soul, and if you are a person who causes them
grief in this task, it will be unprofitable for you. The idea here can be taken
to mean that you give them joy by being found in obedience, but also, that you
are quite literally just a joy to shepherd. Thus, the natural conclusion to
this is that if you are difficult to shepherd, uncooperative, argumentative,
negligent, complacent—or simply even non-existent, it doesn’t benefit
you in any sense. Beyond this, we are called to consider the outcome of our
leader’s lives and imitate their faith (Heb. 13:7); how can we do this
if we are not among them on a weekly basis? How can your elders faithfully shepherd
you if you are a fair-weather attendee?
There are numerous other, positive benefits to attending church—but at
the heart of this post, I really want to address what I believe to be the fundamental
issue behind why people treat church attendance as optional: they believe that
the church exists to serve them and their felt needs. In other words, they are
consumers. They believe the church exists for them and to serve them. They come
to the church when it suites them and once they have had their fill, they either
move on to another church, or, they simply come at their leisure as they feel
some pressing need. In their minds, church is not a place where they can live
out their faith in community. It is likewise not a place they feel any meaningful
connection with, save for those times they feel a particular thirst for a “dose”
of religion. They never move beyond a me-centered approach for why they come
to church in the first place, which invariably leads to their departure for
one reason or another.
I believe this to be the case because much in the same way, they have treated
the Christian faith as a commodity to be consumed. In other words: they have
not understood the fundamental principle that while the Christian faith is for
them, it is certainly not about them. They have not grasped the truth that even
their salvation was not about them. It was for them, but it was about Jesus
Christ. It has always been about Jesus Christ; from Genesis to Revelation, the
whole of the Scriptures testify—not to man and something winsome within
him that merits God’s love—but of the great love of the Father which
was demonstrated to the world through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ
(1 Jn. 4:9-10). Once we understand this, not only will the whole of our Christian
existence change rather radically—how we view the church will also differ.
We will become Christ-centered and other-focused rather than me-centered. Our
view of the universe will grow beyond the scope of our own nose as we see how
we play a part in the grand drama that is playing out before our very eyes.
We will become less and less preoccupied with meeting our own “felt needs”
and grow more and more concerned with what we can do to meet the needs of others.
Part and parcel to this will be a fuller understanding of the importance of
being part of a local manifestation of the body—not simply as we feel
like it, but as often as we can, because we will grow more dissatisfied with
yoking ourselves with this world in favor of the bride of Christ. In essence,
we will begin to see the body of Christ as Scripture portrays her: the spotless
bride of Jesus Christ, for whom He died. We will look upon her radiance and
loveliness, see her clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and her dear union
with her Bridegroom—and we will desire that same union for ourselves.
Here then is the fullest reason why we do not abdicate the assembly of the brethren:
we are to meet together and encourage one another all the more as we see that
great Day coming (Heb. 10:25). In other words: together, as this corporate gathering,
we look with great anticipation of the Day when Christ will return and we get
to partake in the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7-10).
If I could put it even more clearly: we gather with the saints each Sunday,
not simply out of obedience, nor even because of all the wondrous benefits found
therein. We convene with the local church each weekend because we are betrothed,
not as individuals, but as a body, to our Lord, Jesus Christ. We assemble together
because He has assembled us together. We gather while it is still called “today”
because we will be gathered together in His great halls with the believers of
all time. If you can’t stomach meeting with believers today, while they
too groan as they await the day of their redemption, in what possible reality
can you say with earnestness that you will be united with them at the end of
all days? When we get down to it, if you understand the importance of why we
gather together each week—church should become the “excuse”
you use to miss everything else that conflicts with it—not the other way
around.
By Grayson Gilbert
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