Should We Go to Church?

            It’s Sunday morning.  What should we do today?  Go to church?  No, not this week.  We can go next month when they have the potluck.  Today, let’s sleep in and then take a morning walk.  We can hit the IHOP around 10:00, take our time, and then go to the small-town art festival before the crowd gets too big.

            It’s Sunday morning, and ohhh, I am hung over.  My life is falling apart.  A DUI and now a likely divorce.  O God, what will I do?  God!  Why would God listen to me, if there is a God?  I haven’t given God a second thought in years.  Now I want to cry out to God?  What a crock!  Do I even know how to pray?  What would they do if I showed at that church on the corner?  Would they kick me out?  Everyone else has.  Why not try it?  What do I have to lose?

            OK, Sunday morning!  Get the kids up and start getting ready.  We don’t want to be late for Sunday School a third Sunday in a row!  Can we stay home today?  Not on your life.  As long you live in this house, you will go to Sunday School, to worship, and you will sing the songs and listen to the sermon.  God is important and we won’t learn anything about him or grow closer to him staying home.

            Which one most closely resembles how your Sundays go?  I know, I know, you can think of an option that’s not even remotely close to the ones I cited above.  You can think of 10 options not like the ones above.  Fine. What are your Sundays like?  Is church a major part of your Sundays, and if it is, why is it?  Is church important because you want to see friends?  Does it make you feel good?  Is worshiping God a crucial part of your life?

            Or is church a part of a few of your Sundays, but definitely not all of them?  I recently read “the new normal for church attendance is one-and-a-half times a month.”  Assuming that one-and-a-half times is mostly at the same church, that church gets a chance to be with that attendee or family 18 times a year.  I don’t know where the person who said that got that statistic because he doesn’t cite a source.  My own observations lead me to think that’s about right.

            I am church pastor.  Most of the core members of our church are in worship more than 30 Sundays a year.  But, we have a lot of casual attendees that we see anywhere from 10-20 times a year; less than half the time.  Where are they the other 32-42 Sundays?  On those few Sundays that we see them in worship, what led them to decide to go to church that particular day?  The rest of the time, how did they decide to do whatever they are doing when they aren’t in worship?  And is it important?

            Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Of course no one, is going to come to church because a pastor says they should.  No one is going to come to church because a pastor says the Bible says they should.  That’s what people expect pastors to say and pastors are easy to ignore. 

            The Bible indeed in many places including this passage from the New Testament book Hebrews insists that followers of Jesus must gather together regularly.  Solitary faith is foreign to the Bible.  I can follow Jesus in my own way.  It’s a very individualistic sentiment and our American cultural ethos just adores individual autonomy.  But the follow Jesus in my own way idea makes no sense from a Biblical perspective.

            So what do we do then?  We can’t force people to come to church (and we shouldn’t try).  We can’t shame people into coming to worship every week (and we shouldn’t try; convicting the heart is the Holy Spirit’s job, not ours).  What do we do?

            First, each individual Christian/church member has to decide not only to come to church every week, but to do so with a joyful heart.  Church isn’t just some “thing that we do.”  Church is the gathering of people to worship the risen Lord, the present Holy Spirit.  If we come together in love and in genuine joy, that will be attractive to people.  Life is hard and people are lonely.   More people take medication for depression and varieties of personality disorders than at any point in history.  Our addictions to our phones has left us inept at actual person-to-person, face-to-face conversations and relationships.  If people can go somewhere that’s free where they are welcomed and loved, they’ll come back.  We have to come in joy.

            Second, we have to maintain that joy no matter how many people are in church on any particular Sunday.  It might one of those Sundays where most of the people who attend once a month or less are not there.  We can either focus on the empty seats, or put our energy into sharing joy and love with the few who are there.  We’re joyful regardless of the crowd size.

            Third, we heap love on people when they come.  If someone walks through the doors Sunday morning, someone who hasn’t come in a couple of months, we smile and welcome them.  They know how long it’s been since they last came.  They don’t need us pointing it out and making a big deal of it.  Remember, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict the heart.  We share joy and love.  For the person who came early in February and now in May is finally back, why do we think he came back?  To be lectured?  I think we’ll have a better effect on him loving him than lecturing him. 

            Finally, in our preaching, prayers, and teaching, we emphasize the way of discipleship.  Of course discipleship is much more than committing to attend worship 30 times a year.  Discipleship is committing to follow Jesus every moment of every day.  People need help moving from occasional church attendance to committed church involvement to devoted discipleship.  In the sermons, the song, the testimonies, and prayers, we model discipleship and invite all present to consider the disciple life.

            I don’t know if the suggestions I have made here will actually increase attendance at our church or in church attendance in general in our country.  But increasing church attendance isn’t our goal.  We’re not here to get that couple that decided to sleep in and go to IHOP to instead attend our church every week.  We’re here to help them become passionately devoted followers of Jesus.  If we work on that, helping people become disciples, we’re doing what God wants us to do.  God can worry about the attendance numbers.  We can live in joy knowing we are followers of Jesus at church and in all the places of our lives.