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Why we should go to Church, when to leave a Church

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:22-23

Judges 6:1-3; Acts 2; Romans 12; Hebrews 10:24-25; 13:7, 17

Do you want to go to church, but feel lost there? Do you dread going to church? Do you wonder why or even if you should go to church?

I often hear from Christians that they do not have to go to church to worship God; this is a fallacy and a lie from our enemy. Yes, we do need to go to a good, healthy church so we can be recharged and refreshed to do the work of our Lord. Worship gives us the glimpse of Heaven-the rest and the future to which we can look. We need a place where we can grow and be encouraged and nurtured so we can be filled with the power to go out and do. Christians I have met who say they do not need to go to church are lethargic and do little to nothing for either the Lord or for their own personal growth. They just wallow through their self-pity, licking their hurts and wounds from the past. It is sad that they were “spiritually abused” by the diseases of the bad churches, but we need to reboot ourselves or else we will neither accomplish anything in our lives nor be of service to our Lord.

We need to take the words of Paul in Ephesians as a battle line for a stand and commitment to the call of our Lord. We must fight the urge to stay to ourselves in the hurried lifestyle that goes nowhere, where we try to escape the responsibilities and the promises of life both for the here and now and also in the world to come.

Too many Christians and non-Christians try to escape His call and replace it with anything they can find. Extra sleep and jet skis become the urgent needs, then the yard must be taken care of, then we have to work on Sunday, or we must be entertained or take the kids to their sporting events-and the list goes on. Even the once-committed Christian who was damaged by some of the “diseases” will yield to these other things that need to be taken care of. Church becomes downgraded to a dreaded trip to visit grandma in the rest home, or a school trip to the museum. We may have the intention and desire to go, but other things just have a greater urgency and need. So, our grandma remains lonely and we miss the splendor of the wisdom and the relationship of family. When we miss out in church, we miss the luster of what Christ has to offer us.

If we are not committed to a church home, then there is no one to keep us accountable or to miss us when we do not attend worship. If no one is expecting us, we can come up with all those excuses of why we need not go. Then, a trickle-down effect will occur. When we neglect church, our spiritual disciplines will fall, one-by-one. Prayer will fall to the side. Perhaps, if we have time, we may pray. It will be the same with the reading of Scripture, and so forth. The growth we experienced in Christ will lose the stability and the routine that keeps us booted up, and we will fall to laziness and other commitments.

Filed under: Building a Fruitful Church | Tagged: authority, bad churches, belong, bitterness, Church, Church is Important, Church Leadership, commitment, going to church, good church, grounded, Healthy church, in Christ, institution, leaders, Leave a Church, living faith, maturity, personal growth, promises, sanctification, serve, Shepherd, spiritually abused, theology, turned off, turned off by church, worship, worship God |