A Case for Going to Church

The last post spent a little time discussing the importance of living a lifestyle of worship. I tried to emphasize that a Christian can worship Jesus Christ in acts of service and faithfulness everyday – whether that is caring for the poor, the beauty of creation, et cetera. After reflecting on that you might be wondering, “So what is the point of going to church?” I mean, our church family did a lot of “going to church” during the last week (Easter Week). We had eight different worship services over the course of nine days. This might lead you to ask, “What’s all the fuss about. We can do that all the time!” Well, let me make a case for the importance of worshiping God in church.

First, worship in church communicates that God is worthy of praise just because God is God. When we come together as a community for weekend worship services, those worship times have one (and only one) purpose: communicating the end-all-be-all worth of God. There is no other goal, no other agenda. God is told through every activity that God is the most valuable (worthy) thing in our lives. Where caring for the poor glorifies God because God is in the midst of the poor (Matthew 25), the Christian worship service worships God because God is. There is no other agenda. God is not worshiped because acts of service are taking place. God is not honored because wonderful things are being accomplished. God is worshiped because God deserves it. This activity is good in and of itself.

Second, worship in church gives us the opportunity to glorify God together. Much of our world emphasizes our individualism. We can customize just about everything to fit our personal wants, needs, dreams, desires, et cetera. We can put together a paragraph just to order a coffee: vente, non-fat, half-calf, 200 hundred degree, one pump, sugar free, vanilla latte. Even in our devotional lives, we use terms like “personal devotions” or “prayer closet.” Such phrases might be undergirded with the assumption that connecting with God involves some type of withdrawal from other people. This is not the case with worship in church. In church we get the chance to worship together. Once a week we have the opportunity to say, “For this hour or two, we as a community are going to center ourselves on God in Jesus Christ. We are going to tell God that God is of the highest, end-all-be-all value in our lives.” We can do this all the time as individuals (as stated in the previous blog), but we only get to worship once a week together!

Third and finally, worshiping God (1) as an end, (2) in community, empowers us to live a lifestyle of worship. Because we weekly join together as a community to place worth where worth is due (God), we have the right focus for the rest of our lives. Christians have worshiped on the first day of the week for centuries. This practice allows us to keep “first things first.” We proclaim God’s ultimate worth on the first day of the week. This then gives us the correct perspective for the rest of the week. So when we care for the poor on Tuesday, we are drawing on the resources of Sunday (worship). When we are gracious with the rude waiter on Friday, we are drawing on the resources of Sunday (worship). The lifestyle of Christian worship that I described in my first blog always needs, and draws upon, Christian worship in church.