When the COVID-19 pandemic forced churches to move online for a period, it interrupted the weekly gathering of the church in a unique and perhaps unprecedented way. When it was prudent for us to return to in-person meetings, many people across the U.S. did not return. There are any number of reasons for this, but it represents a concerning trend where people are attending church less often.
Perhaps the period away caused many of these people to ask, “Why do we go to church in the first place?” Perhaps you are asking that as well. Add in recent disturbing failures and abuses on the part of well-known church leaders, and it is enough to convince many that they can and should live out their faith apart from the church.
In a way, I’m sympathetic. I spent a short period of my life highly reticent to get too involved with church (let alone join one) because of past hurt. However, by the end of that period, I was spiritually depressed, intensely lonely, and aching for a community with which to do ministry. As I’ve pastored people over the past thirty years, I’ve seen experiences similar to my own play out in many people’s lives.
The Bible is the first reason we should reconsider writing off the church, and it confirms the experience that I and many others (perhaps you as well) have had. We find in Hebrews 10:24-25 four short reasons the church is essential to the life of a Christian. The beauty is that these four reasons are all described as gifts we receive from regular church attendance, as opposed to the heaping up of guilt for those skipping out on Sunday worship.
Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (ESV).
Hope
The first and greatest blessing we discover in a Gospel church is hope. Hope is not wishful thinking but rather the assurance that everything will be made right some day by a sovereignly gracious God. In other words, hope is not just the anticipation of personal blessing in heaven but the certainty that all the effects of the fall will finally be reversed. All disease will be healed, all sadness will be turned to joy, all injustice will be rectified, all relationships will be reconciled and all will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.
Minute by minute through the week as we deal with the effects of the fall in every sector of our lives, we’re prone to gradually lose that perspective. By the end of every week, it is usual for a Christian to think that the devil is winning and his destructive ways will continue unchecked forever. However, when we return to worship on Sunday, joining the loving company of fellow Christian pilgrims, we can have our perspective reoriented from a closed earthly system to a world ruled by a redeeming God. That is exactly what happened to the psalmist in Psalm 73. He had lost eternal perspective and was spiraling down in his bitterness against the wicked until he entered worship and was reminded of the eternal destiny of the wicked in contrast to his own.
So where in the church experience should we look for that adjustment of perspective to occur? Four areas immediately come to mind. Most obvious is the preaching and teaching of the Word. As you listen, the Lord enables you to view life from His eternal perspective rather than your temporal one. Secondly, it is in the celebration of the sacraments. Observing a baptism reminds you that you have been marked out by the Holy Spirit as His dear child. And as you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, you are reminded that you have an engagement to be at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Singing His praises in good times and bad reminds you that God is always good. And being in the fellowship of older saints encourages you that God never forsakes his children.
Love
The second gift the writer unpacks for us in a Gospel church is true love. We can overhear what our culture is desperate for by what it talks a lot about. And a word that is on the tip of most everyone’s tongue in every segment of society is “community.”
People long to be known and loved, and they are so unaccustomed to it that they can settle for just being known by name in a bar. However, just putting the word “community” on a neighborhood sign or in hospital literature or on a college campus website does not create true community. Community is only created by love, and only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can cause people to love each other despite their sins, their socio-economic differences, and their varying interests. Such love is described as “covenantal” in the Bible because it reflects God’s covenant commitment to love us in Christ regardless of our lack of love for Christ and others.
So how do you become an active part of a covenant community? You put yourself in places where you can know and serve people very different from yourself as well as allow yourself to be known and loved by people who are different from you. A local church is the perfect place to do this. Volunteer to serve in the nursery, teach a children’s Sunday School class or catechism, participate in the youth ministry, help out in your parish, or serve the widows. People I have pastored walk away from these experiences tremendously blessed because they have knit themselves into a community of love.
Good Deeds
Next the writer says that involvement in a local church will help you do the right thing. If the Spirit inhabits each follower of Christ, then it stands to reason that His power is only increased as we are in fellowship with more Christians. We are more greatly protected from the attacks of the devil, and we have more people speaking positively into our lives. Though it is somewhat of a tired saying, it is nonetheless true that we become like the company we keep. We should not be surprised if we become more engaged in serving others in meaningful ways in the church and the city if we are consistently surrounding ourselves with other like-minded believers who are putting such servant-heartedness on display. Conversely, we should not be surprised if our lives become indistinguishable from non-Christians if we “neglect to meet together.”
So how do you engage in a local church in such a way that you live more faithfully? First, you need to take the new members class, join the church, and take vows before the congregation. Those vows include a commitment to attend church and submit yourself to the elders. Francis Schaeffer said that we need to take vows in every significant relationship because we are all liars, and we need the community to keep us accountable. Further, joining a church links you to organized activities that you would not be involved with otherwise, like outreach and mercy ministry.
Encouragement
Is there anything any of us needs more than encouragement these days? With all the negativity that swirls around us on any given week, the encouraging words or embrace of a friend is like a glass of cold water on a hot day.
Specifically, you need a local body of believers who represent the Gospel to you because you need encouragement in the Christian battle. Jesus promised us that in this world we will have trouble. And that trouble is often energized by the Evil One, which means we are not sufficient in and of ourselves to battle the discouragement he brings. Of course, we have Christ in us who is greater than the one in the world, but Christ also tells us that he is especially with us where two or three are gathered together in His name. Not only will encouragement for the battle come to you through the explicit words of encouragement of those who know you are struggling, it will come in ways you cannot anticipate during the course of a worship service. Paul said that the peace of Christ will dwell in us richly as we teach and admonish one another with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Co. 3:16). As a pastor, I have regularly experienced the phenomenon of being built up by the congregation as I allow them to sing to me in worship.