Attending Church

2017-01-21

This is of utmost importance. It may be intimidating to go to church and meet people you never met before. However, the Bible tells us that we are to be with other believers (not online or watching a church program on television, but physically present with other Christians). Consider this:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Let us summarize what this means for us:

  1. God gave us various spiritual gifts. We are all different, and have different abilities. We all come with different strengths and weaknesses. We go to church to help one another learn about the teachings of the Lord.
  2. We need perfecting. Perfecting gives the idea of being complete. We are incomplete without each other!
  3. We need equipping for the ministry. The “ministry” is service to God, and we are all called to it. How can we learn to share the gospel with others? We do that by interacting with others and hearing the teaching from the Bible.
  4. We are to edify others and be edified. Being a Christian does not make life easier necessarily. It often makes life harder. We need help from others, and we need to help them.
  5. We need to have unity with others. We were born again with a need for Christian community, which is called the church. The word “church” literally means a congregation. You cannot have fellowship or be in a church unless you are actually physically present with other believers.
  6. The local church gives us stability. While we do not necessarily need formal teaching to understand the Bible, meeting with other believers will keep us on track believing the correct things. When we are by ourselves studying the Bible, there is the possibility that we could come up with a false idea due to our misunderstanding. By being with other Christian people, we can come to unity in what we believe and not fall into error.
  7. We will become more like Christ. We become more like Christ by being around other Christian people. While living a good life is clearly not a prerequisite to becoming a Christian or staying saved, it is dire that we seek Christ, forsake sin, and die to ourselves daily so that we can be the servants of God that He wants us to be. If we do not seek the things of God, we can expect His discipline.

We should be “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Even when Paul wrote these words down centuries ago, there were people that did not go to church at all, and the result was divine discipline on them. Today there are many people who profess Christ but do not go to church anywhere. They ignore God’s command to be with other believers. Do not make this same mistake.