so i went to church this weekend...
you know, when i was in spain last summer, i went to church more than a couple’a times. there was the church on top of mt tibidabo where you could see the entire city, and i went to an afternoon mass/vespers service and crashed a wedding on the same day. i went to the monastery at montserrat and sat through the sundown vespers…
funny thing was, even though i am fluent in spanish, i couldn’t understand the service at all! for starters, the church officials talked in catalan, the local dialect. yup. not able to understand one word. and secondly… well, i was there at church all alone. yet, i stayed for the entire service, i sang when they sang, i stood when they stood, i knelt when they knelt, and i read the Bible when they were just talking. since i couldn’t really -be- part of the service.
looking back on that time, it makes me think - what is the point of attending church if you don’t understand the service?
i guess where this comes from is… when i go to church here in the states, it’s not that much different from my experiences in spain. i go there, i sing along with the songs, stand when they stand, sit when they sit, but i’m so disconnected from the sermon. it might just happen to be the churches where i’ve attended. it might just be me and i hadn’t been ready to listen to sermons intently. but even though i wasn’t paying attention to the sermon, GOING to church had always been an important part of my life.
but once i realized the disconnect that was there… i slowly stopped going to church. for me, going to church was always a social event - it was important because it was the time to fellowship with other believers. our family went to church together, my roommates and i went together, and all my friends went to the same church that i did. when all my friends moved away (and they just all happened to go to japanese church with me), i lost the aspect of church that was always so important to me. i thought i could just ask perry to go with me, but he had stopped going to church not long before we started dating. and so i was left to go to church all alone. and since for me, the point of going to church was to fellowship with my church family, and i felt like i had no church family to call my own, i slowly stopped going. every once in a while i’d go and i always left feeling.... hmm… empty? no… it’s more like, i left the service feeling exactly how i did when i went to the churches in spain - i had attended physically, and i had attended alone, but it was mostly a RITUAL of being there. even if i paid attention to the sermon, and even if the sermon was a good one, it still felt like a ritual that -had- to be done and not necessarily something that blessed me and lifted me up and made me feel closer to God.
maybe, just for me, growing in my relationship with God had always involved other people and i don’t know what to do when those other people are not there to guide and/or support me.
and maybe, going to church isn’t that important. especially if it doesn’t bring me closer to God.
and yet, i still missed it. going to church did nothing to make me -feel- closer to God, but -not- going to church left me feeling like i was missing part of my walk. i’m in a lose-lose situation.
and so here i am with a challenge for all you Christians-who-go-to-church-and-read-this-blog. what is the point of attending church at all? i’m not trying to say that there is no point, but i -am- trying to figure out - what is the purpose of going to church?
since i did go to church this weekend, i sat through the service and wrote an entire page full of notes on the sermon, notes to myself on my particular walk with God, and notes from random parts of the Bible that i wanted to challenge my dad with later. but i already know what i’ve written down. and i already know what i’m struggling with. but now? now i would like to know what -you- think.
what is the purpose of going to church?
It’s all about your heart and your relationship with God. God knows and honors those who have a heart to seek Him. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to go to church every week to be a good Christian, you need to remember God cares more about your relationship with Him more than any outward act like attending church, observing sabbath, etc. However, with that being said, Hebrews 10:24-26 is a good verse to cling to. If your walk with Him is good, you’ll want to do those things out of love for Him, not out of religious observation, just as you would want to do things for that special someone you care about. God could care less about religion, as He desires obedience more than sacrifice. So what is the purpose of church? There’s many answers to that, so a short one is: just like anything else, out of your love for God. If you’re walking closely w/ the Lord, you’ll want to read His Word, you’ll want to pray and talk w/ Him, and you’ll want to go to church to worship Him. Church is just one way of showing how much you love Him. I don’t know if that helps, but you can ask more if it doesn’t. God bless!
Posted by on 02/26 at 06:59 PMHey Ahte,
Y’know, I blogged about this very subject about a month before you did. My conclusion kinda took me by surprise. Anyway, you ain’t the only one thinking about it.
Posted by LT on 03/09 at 07:35 PM
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