Do We Have to Go to Church to Be Christian?
Why Should Christians Go to Church Today?
But there is great benefit in attending and belonging to a specific church – and not just the Church Universal, but the Christian church across the world dedicated to sharing the Gospel and bringing about God’s kingdom here on earth. There are important reasons why humans do well in church and benefit from attending today:
Here are a few reasons:
1. Church is a good place to get consistent weekly faith teaching.
2. Church is a good opportunity to worship the Lord, whether in song, in silence, in prayer, or in devotion.
3. Church helps bring other Christian believers alongside us. No, these believers are not always perfect, but it is really helpful to do life alongside other people of faith. It helps us stay accountable, it helps us model discipleship to others, and it helps us learn that discipleship by watching others model it to us.
4. Church reminds us of our values. In a time when culture tells us almost anything is acceptable, church is a place where we focus on the values that Christ imparted and try to strive for them. It’s a powerful voice in a world that is often being drowned out by the enemy.
5. Church can help us to help others more effectively. For example, consider our finances. Alone, we might be able to donate some money to help some people in need. But when we pool our efforts and our funds with other people of faith, we can do more. We can have a larger impact. This can attract other people to help and bring awareness to important issues that might otherwise not be addressed in our community or neighborhood.
6. Church can be a great place to gather with people different from us. A lot of times in our workplaces, our schools, or our neighborhoods, we are surrounded by people who look very much like us. They dress the same, talk the same, and might be in the same economic position or have similar family structures. They might be in the same life age and stage as we are. But in church we have the opportunity to be around people of different ages. Children have the opportunity to be around older people, who have the opportunity to mingle with teens, who have the ability to rub elbows with business people, who can gather with retirees. We learn a lot from each other.
7. Church is a place where the Holy Spirit can move powerfully. Jesus said, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). The Holy Spirit is alive in us when we believe, and its flame can be stoked when our flame gathers with other believers. Put a bunch of believers in a room together and look out—it can be a Holy Spirit explosion! It’s a very good thing. Just like when you take two candles and put them together and their light shines brighter, it’s the same thing with Christian believers. The Holy Spirit is magnified.
8. Church helps us be less self-absorbed. It forces us to take time out of other things we might prefer to do and instead devote that time to God. Take Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary—Martha was doing what she thought she was supposed to be doing, preparing the meal, but Mary made the better choice by stopping to sit at Jesus’s feet and focusing on Him. As Jesus said in Luke 10:42, she made the better choice. Sometimes we think we might need to do laundry, catch up on sleep, or do a project. Perhaps we really just need to be sitting at the foot of Jesus, soaking in his wisdom and his light and being a conduit for his truth in the world. We need to recharge from the source.
Photo credit: Unsplash/Sandro Gonzalez
