Meeting

The passsage in Hebrews that says "do not forsake meeting together" is a good one.  It's especially applicable today when so many people consider attending church twice a month as "regular".  I really want to go on a tirade about this subject but I've decided no to today.  The only thing I'll say before I move on to my next point is that I really don't understand how someone can wake up on their day of worship, consider the God in the heavens and the object of their worship and affection and then come up with something they'd rather do than to go and worship Him.  I just don't get it.  

Whether it be out of desire, duty, or something else; I don't see how that pull isn't so powerful that it only wins 50% of the time.

I think equally dangerous in our thinking is the thought that our weekly gathering to worship defines us as believers.  I just started reading finally alive by John Piper.  He notes that by statistics it appears that "born agains" show no difference in behavior and lifestyle than those are not born again.  Many have used this statistics to say that there is no difference. no change, when a person comes to salvation in Jesus Christ.  Piper declares that this simply means the church is full of people who assume they are born again but are deceived.  Wow.

So all that to say, yes, we can't forsake meeting together but by all means lets not let our meeting together deceive us into thinking that is living out the gospel.  That takes place the rest of the week.  Our meeting together is just a rally, a brief respite from the work, our one hour of vacation, of rejuvenation of refueling before we get out there and get back to living out the gospel.  

Comments

[Kristin]

Your first paragraph is interesting. I definitely do think this is the case with some Christians—that they have their priorities backwards. On the other hand, there are other ways of “meeting together” than attending church. Especially in a time when many Christians are disillusioned by the Church, small home fellowships or even simply spending time with other believers can be more conducive to spiritual growth. I’d even go so far as to say that community outside of church can be more Christlike; cliques, politics, and isolation seem to tear people apart from each other and away from Christ more often that we’d like to admit.

You don’t understand “how someone can wake up on their ‘day of worship’ (I’m assuming you mean Christians’ marked day of corporate worship, not the Sabbath of the Old Testament), consider the God in the heavens and the object of their worship and affection and then come up with something they’d rather do than to go and worship him.” Many people who have difficulty attending church on Sunday mornings (or Saturday nights or Wednesday nights or Sunday nights or whenever) aren’t just blowing off their Creator. They’re struggling with the body of believers that is the Church—the ones who have isolated them, pushed them to the side, failed to “laugh when they laugh and feel sorrow when they feel sorrow,” and given up on them, be it knowingly or unknowingly. The Body of Christ can be quite masochistic. This combined with the obnoxiously cheerful or self-obsessed praise songs cause them to consider more authentic ways to worship. I would say that 75% of the time, not attending church has nothing to do with a need to reprioritize, and that these people are worshipping through their own communities apart from the church as an institution or through other stations in their lives.

Do these people have an excuse? God calls us into community, no one is perfect, and every day we all fall short of loving with Christ’s love. Maybe this isn’t a viable reason to not attend church every week. But emotionally and psychologically, there comes a point where enough is enough. Pain and isolation from a community can only be suffered for so long. Sure, there are better ways of handling it than withdrawal. But at this point, I believe we should be examining our own lives, reflecting on the way we’ve been loving, and following Donald Miller’s example and saying “I am the problem.”