It was just another day at the office.  We were conducting business as usual, and a staff member was discussing religion with me.  Normally this is a topic we are asked to avoid, but ever since the staff learned that I was studying pastoral ministry, the questions and thoughts constantly came rolling in.  One of the staff members said, “I believe in God, and I don’t go to church, but I have so many good memories of going to church with my daughters.  We used to go all the time, but it’s been twenty years.  I’m busy on Sundays, anyway.  I don’t need to go back.”  Before I could say anything, the person next to them said, “I’m a Christian, too, and you don’t have to go to church to go to heaven.  The Bible doesn’t say we have to go.  I have tons of things to do, as well, and don’t really have time for church.”  That discussion resulted in this post.

I want to be clear that the subject of the church is a vast and comprehensive topic.  Its study is known as ecclesiology, and there are entire sections of systematic theologies, dissertations, and books dedicated to this specific topic.  Theologians, from ancient to present, divide the church in many ways: the visible church, the invisible church, the church militant, the church triumphant, and much more.  I am not going to focus on those important aspects of the church, nor am I going to discuss the whole observance of the Christian Sabbath, though attending church is part of it.  Technical understanding is not what I’m seeking to accomplish.  Instead, I am simply seeking to show that the church Jesus Christ establishes has a formal worship service held on the Lord’s Day (Sunday), and it is expected to be observed.  Our busyness in life is not an excuse to neglect to partake in the worship service.

One of the greatest attacks of the enemy is to make you busy, to make you hurried, to make you noisy, to make you distracted, to fill the people of God and the Church of God with so much noise and activity that there is no room for prayer. There is no room for being alone with God. There is no room for silence. There is no room for meditation.

– Paul Washer

We’ve all done it: stayed up too late on Saturday night, planned a family outing instead, or even just overslept.  We had the best of intentions, but we just didn’t make it: we missed church.  We might feel guilty or say that we’ll buckle down and be sure to go next week, but in an era when attending church seems to have taken a backseat to our daily lives and is determined by its convenience, we seem to have forgotten church is not optional.  Church is not about gathering with people we like to be around to enjoy their company while singing and learning good concepts.  Church is not a place we take our children so they can be cared for while we do something else.  Church is not about even about getting spiritually recharged so you can take on the week.  The bottom line: Church is not about you.

Is Church a thing?

Church is about gathering with the saints of God to worship and give thanks to our God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three in person and one in essence.  It is about giving God the glory due to His name.  We are commanded to, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8, NASB).  From Adam to Christ, the Jews observed the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week because God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh.  On this seventh day, the Jews went to the synagogues to hear God’s Word.  We read of Paul joining them in the Book of Acts.  However, after Christ raised from the dead on Sunday, references to the formal assembly of the church is shifted to Sunday (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2).

What is one of the ways in which this first day of the week is set apart from the six others to be marked as holy?  The assembly of the faithful.  There is no other day of the week which the Bible instructs us to keep holy.  This is not to say that God does not intend we treat the other days as holy, but rather that the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, be treated as especially holy.

It is in our churches that we take part in drawing near to God through the preaching of the Word, the singing of songs, public and private prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and holy communion.  It is this assembly to which the writer of Hebrews refers when exhorts us,

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:19-25, NASB)

This assembly is the result of our new life given by grace through faith in Christ alone.  It is an assembly that is not shared with the world.  There is a spiritual uniqueness granted to it by the Holy Spirit.  There are some who claim that the assembly referred to in Hebrews is not the church as founded by Jesus Christ, but something else altogether.  However, we see evidence of this same assembly not just in other apostolic writings in the New Testament, but also in the historical accounts of Justin Martyr, a second-century apologist born in 100AD, approximately 70 years after Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension,

CHAP. LXVII.-WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRISTIANS.

        And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability,2 and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. (pp. 185-186)

What you may notice is that there are many parts of the worship service that still exist in the same form today.  Blessing the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost is prayer.  The reading of the memoirs of the apostles or writings of the prophet and the exhortation to obey them is the service of the Word.  The bread, wine, and water are the elements of the sacraments baptism and communion.  There is even a collection taken up to provide for the orphans, widows, the sick, and others in need.  This draws a clear line between the referred to assemblies, the church, and the worship service.  While it is clear in Acts that the church, that is, the people who make up the body of Christ, gather more often than just on Sundays, there is a special day set apart in their hearts, commanded by the Lord, to uphold special observance.

So church is a thing, and now I have to go?

Yes.  Church is a thing, and you have to go.  God has bestowed upon His church an indestructible unity and endurance until His children dwell with Him on a new heaven and new earth (Matthew 16:18).  When that happens, the church will be free from persecution and exist forevermore.  But right now, the church assembling weekly for worship is a unique opportunity to draw near to God in a capacity we are not afforded the other six days of the week – even if we meet in small groups.

Attending church is not just recommended, it is commanded.  It is not just commanded, it is necessary for your spiritual walk with Christ.  We need to compare ourselves with the whole of scripture to determine whether or not we are in the faith.  The fact is, Christians go to church.  While going to church doesn’t make anyone a Christian, it is certainly a mark of true faith.  We wouldn’t say that someone who doesn’t go to school is a student any more than we would say that someone who doesn’t go to work is a worker.  The same can be said of a Christian.  The church is the bride of Christ, and we cannot say we love Christ if we despise His bride.

References:

Justin Martyr. (1885). The First Apology of Justin. In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. C. Coxe (Eds.), The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (Vol. 1, pp. 185–186). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation