Church: Why Bother?

Here's another e-mail from another friend and church member. She was replying to an earlier post that got her to thinking about the all the appeals we make to get people to come to church with us. I have her permission to share the note and the reply.

Here's the note:

Hi, Tom. As Baptists, we're ingrained with a "bring them to the church house" mentality. But you know one thing I can't ever find Jesus doing in scripture? Dragging people to church, let alone inviting them. Nope, he went to where they were, lived with them and talked with them. Until we leave the "how many people can we squeeze into the building" mentality, I think we'll always have this issue: People feel that bringing someone to church helps the person they brought, and relieves the bringer of the responsibility of actually wittnessing. It's a win/win... except that it doesn't work, and it's not what Jesus told us to do. Okay, I'll climb down off my soapbox. :-)

And my reply:

Hey, glad to have you at your keyboard again. As for what Christ expected, I'm reluctant to put him in an either-or category: "either love church stuff or love being with people in the world." Seems to me church was his idea all along ("Upon this rock I will build my church"). Those he chose to teach in his name had even more exalted things to say about the church ("pillar and foundation of the truth," and "through the church all the manifold wisdom of God will be made known" and so on). So, the idea that he wasn't really big on the idea of "church" just can't be found in scripture; just the opposite.

Here's where we've gotten into trouble in our day and age, though--two things:

First, we've got this idea that "church" is a building or a program. "Church" has become a building at the corner of Steck and Greenslope or it's become the thing we do on Sunday mornings (we "go to church"). But "church" is made up of believers not bricks. So, did he tell us to "go to church"? No, but we are to be the church. And that takes "not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some" (Hebrews 10:25). It's just real hard to ignore all that "assembling together" that the believers did in The Acts of the Apostles. They must have known something that some of us have forgotten: That in order to fulfill all the "one anothers" of the Bible (pray for one another, serve one another, bear with one another, etc), you kinda have to be together for that. And to observe Baptism and Communion, commanded by Jesus, you have to have a time and place for that.

Do you have to have a church building for that? No, but you do have to have a church. Whether you're inviting someone to join you at Steck and Greenslope for someone's baptism, or you're inviting them to the Round Rock for an outdoor baptism (which I will have a role in next Saturday)--well, either way, you're inviting them to "come to church." Just can't get away from that.

Here's the second way we've gotten into trouble in our day and age: We've gotten this silly idea that only believers would really care about what we do as a church. But if we have a church where people are doing all the stuff that a real church ought to be doing--praying for each other, serving each other, forbearing each other, worshipping God, challenging each other with the good stuff in his Word--do we really have to feel like we're "dragging" someone into that kind of environment? Wouldn't that be absolutely the best environment for them to see the life-changing difference Christ makes?

Of course we should be "in the world," but we're not "doing church" right if those who identify with our church don't spontaneously and naturally want to bring someone with them to experience our congregation's life and study and worship. At Hillcrest, we're "finding and following Jesus together" (which is our slogan).

Does Jesus want us "out there" with people or does he want us bringing people into the Christian community where we share life together?

Yes.

Additional resources: There's more about this subject in The Anchor Course in the section on "I Believe in the Church." And I did an 8-week series on this weblog about our slogan: "Finding and Following Jesus Together."