What About Church?

The topic for this week is church attendance.  Is it important?  Should I go?  If so, when should I go?  How often should I go?  What’s in it for me?

Well, let’s start with the obvious question, “Is it important?”  After all, if it isn’t important, then the rest of those questions don’t really matter, anyway.  Romans 10:14 asks the question, “How shall they hear without a preacher.  So, evidently, having a preacher (or a pastor) is an important part of the Christian life.  Jeremiah 3:15 tells us that God will give us pastors according to His heart.  There are a number of references in the book of the Acts of the Apostles to the body of believers gathering together:  Acts 2:46, Acts 5:42, Acts 6:1, and Acts 20:7.  Also, Apostle Paul admonished us to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together…”  So, God gives us pastors, from whom we should hear the Word expounded, the early church gathered together often, and we are not supposed to forsake the assembly of ourselves together.  That sounds like a pretty clear “yes” to the question of whether church is important, and whether you should go.

When should you go?  Now, there are some that insist that Saturday is the Sabbath day (not Sunday), so you should attend service on Saturday.  Now, the Bible says, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)  If you want to attend service on Saturday, there’s nothing wrong with that.  If you want to attend service on Sunday morning, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.  There are some that make a lot of noise about it being wrong to worship God on Sunday—I personally have a hard time with the idea that there’s a ‘wrong’ time to worship God—but the only time that I’m aware of in Scripture that it specifies a particular day of the week that the early church worshipped was in Acts 20:7 where it says that they worshipped on the first day of the week (Sunday).  Remember that the Sabbath day is an homage to the seventh day when God rested after creation; so, the Sabbath Day would be Saturday, and the first day of the week would be Sunday.  Now, don’t misunderstand me; I feel certain that the early church held services on other days, also, I just wanted to point out that we know from Scripture that at least once they held service on a Sunday.

How often should you go?  To some extent, that’s up to your pastor.  To a lesser extent, it’s up to you.  Health permitting, you should attend every service you can, unless you are a member of one of those churches that has outgrown its building, and the pastor is officiating multiple services a week in order to be able to minister to everyone in his flock.  In those churches, if every church member tried to attend every service, they would have to turn people away, and it might end up being a lot of the same people each time.  Imagine for a moment that Sister Mary shows up for service an hour early every service to make sure she gets in, but Brother Bob comes at the last possible minute each time and is consistently turned away.  Well, you may say, Brother Bob should get up sooner, and not wait until the last possible minute, and there is some truth to that, but let’s not forget that Bob is evidently one of the weaker Christians and he needs all the help he can get (are we not commanded to bear one another’s burdens?)

What do you get out of it?  That question seems a little mercenary, but, to be honest, it is a fair question.  A lot of people seem to think that church service is your service to God, that it is a requirement that you must fulfill in order to get on with your life (some even think that going to church on Sunday gives them carte blanche to live the rest of the week however they please).  Not so.  In actuality, church service is for you.  It strengthens you, spiritually, it encourages you, and sometimes it even equips you when the pastor teaches you something you didn’t know.  It should be an opportunity for you to celebrate your faith.  And, by the way, your service to God is how you live the rest of the week.