Why Go to Church?

Evidently Justin Bieber — somewhere, I don’t know where — said going to church makes a person no more Christian than going to Taco Bell makes you a taco. (Not as rigorous as piece of logic as it could have been, but that’s for another day.) The Rev. Mark Woods (here) responds by listing five reasons for going to church. Here are his and I offer another way of looking at this question.

1. Church stops me from being selfish
2. Church expands my mind and spirit.
3. Church anchors me in a tradition.
4. Church makes me pay attention to God.
5. Church is where God is most visible. At its best, it’s made up of people who have committed themselves to living like Christ and who’ve received the power of the Spirit to do so. This life is most clearly seen in community. Relationship is at the heart of our faith because it’s the essence of the nature of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. During the years of my churchgoing I have been repeatedly awed, humbled and amazed by the quality of the relationships between Christians I have seen. Church is the test-bed, the training-ground and the shop window for a new kind of living. Most of the time, I like going to church.

Each of this is true; each of these is a benefit to the person; each of these, except the fifth, focuses on what the individual gets from going to church. His fifth opens up a different path to re-envisioning the other four (if not eliminating them).

Let us reframe the question to this: Why should you participate in a team sport? If the person’s reasons are that it will make you a better person, or that you will become more confident, or that you will build more team skills for a future job, or that it will help you get another line on your resume when you apply to university … wouldn’t we all think this is well short of the point? (I think so.)

We participate in a team sport for the sake of the team, so the team will win, etc..

We don’t so much “go to church” as we “participate in church.” We don’t “go to church” just on Sundays but we are church all week long in our various fellowship encounters. Church is a people in fellowship with one another under king Jesus. Too often we see “church” as a Sunday morning event. This is why we so often talk about “going to church.” We are better off saying we are “being church” with others.

Let us begin then, not with why I should go to church or what benefits it will bring to me, but with what church is: it is the Body of Christ, a fellowship of differents participating in the redemption of God that lives before God in a way that witnesses what God wants for this world in the here and now — a just, peaceable, and loving society under king Jesus.

Why then be the church?

Because of Christ, because of what God is doing in this world, because we want to participate in a just, peaceable and loving fellowship in this world.