Why I Go to Church

I just read a post from a fellow xangan:  "Why I Don't Go to Church". (OK, so I just skimmed over it. I found the animated gifs very distracting. Sorry.). After reflecting, I wanted to offer an alternative view. It is my hope that my story may offer another perspective, a picture of what real faith looks like.

This fellow's story is a story I've heard many times: people who feel a need to explain why they aren't people of faith. I'm not absolutely sure why people feel the need to explain this. I figure that some have truly been searching, just in the wrong places, and they really hope to find something real in the future. Others are more mean-spirited, wanting to denigrate people of faith, painting them as idiots, doofuses, rubes, hicks, or generally unsophisticated wanderers, grasping after snake oil to bring healing and/or meaning to their dull lives. Yet others just don't seem willing to consider the existence of God. They live a totally concrete realm where there is no room for faith in the unseen or intangible.

Well, we're all religious. That's a fact. We place our faith in a plethora of things. Often it is God, or something like him; a deity bigger than ourselves with power and knowledge greater than ours. More often than not, the object of our faith is ourselves. We believe in our own abilities to direct our own destinies and in our own abilities to discern right from wrong, good from bad. There is also more unorthodox approaches to faith, which end up being a goulash made up of God-worship and self-worship, where no real devotion exists at all. In the midst of all these are those who place their faith in a system that is relativistic, where disparate belief systems have an equal position in reality and truth. However, I digress. This was not to be a treatise on religion or faith in general. It is a testimony on my faith and why active church membership and attendance is central to that faith.

I believe there is one God, and that He happens to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the Twelve Apostles, Paul and others who have followed them. I believe that He has existed into eternity past and is the Creator of all that exists. I believe that He is not only Creator, but is Sustainer as well. Our daily existence would not be possible without His intervention or His guiding hand.

I also believe that this God exists in perfection. He is perfectly holy. He is perfectly just. He is perfect in His love and in every other aspect of His character.

As He is perfectly Holy, he requires that His children be holy also (Lev. 11:44). Well, the initial problem is that we're not holy. We're born into sin. We continue in that sin until we change our course. It's this condition of being sinners from the beginning that separates us from God. He is holy. We are sinners. Until we deal with our sinfulness, we have no right to approach God's throne.

God's perfect attributes don't trample on one another. In other words, God, being perfect in love, won't be so loving that he overlooks our sinfulness and denies His holiness. Also, He wouldn't be only holy and deny His loving nature. The multiple facets of God's nature cannot be fathomed by humans who exist in a world of perfect imperfection. Nothing we know or see is absolutely perfect. It's all flawed, so we cannot understand a Being that isn't flawed and that exists in absolute perfection. Also, it's hard to grasp how God can be loving and allow evil in the world or how he can be loving and still punish people for their sin. Such contrasting characteristics seem irrational and illogical. Some skeptics use these notions to excuse their disbelief in this God; they cannot understand or believe that such a being is possible.

Well, God, being the loving God He is, made possible a way for us, His sinful, rebellious creation, to restore our fellowship with Him. He sent His son to earth, as a human, to live amongst us as our example, and ultimately to die unjustly for our sins. This paid the price for all who avail themselves of its benefit with their own personal faith. Faith, in this case, doesn't mean intellectual assent. It means a belief that is evidenced by a change of heart, a redirection of focus and a reversal of life direction. It means not just believing, but standing on what you believe.

Most everyone has heard this story. I heard it many years ago. I saw who I was, where I was in relation to God, and reached out to Him for deliverance. It's been said that once you see the truth, you cannot "unsee" it. I've found this to be my experience. Once God revealed this to me, it became real and tangible. My forgiveness was effective. It restored my relationship with my Creator and I began to see things that had been hidden before. I was, in reality, a new creation.

So why do I go to church? I go because I must. I am compelled to gather with those who have experienced this forgiveness. We, as a body, are drawn to worship God and to celebrate the redemptive work of Jesus. We are commanded as believers to gather in this way (Hebrews 10:24-25), however we would almost certainly gather even if the imperative didn't exist. It's instinctive for believers to want to be with one another, especially when we live in an environment that is becoming increasingly hostile toward denominations and faith communities that hold to non-relativistic absolutes such as the Bible.

That is why I go to church.

Many will snicker, sneer or scoff at all this, and that's OK with me. I don't feel compelled to convince others that I'm right and they're wrong. I will gladly tell my story to any who would want to hear it, yet if you fail to agree with me on matters of faith, when you discover that what I say is actually true, the consequences are yours to bear.

Faith actually isn't as nebulous as some might think. In the light of eternity, it is actually rather weighty.