Lies We Believe #21: I Don’t Need to Go to Church

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
—Hebrews 10:24-25

This past spring I was invited to a nearby university to speak to their InterVarsity group. They were doing a specific outreach to students on campus, by trying to reach students who had been hurt by the church. They had set up a booth in the common area of campus and placed a poster board on the wall and invited students to write on it how the church has let them down. And then, the following evening, they were invited to the large group meeting of InterVarsity to hear me talk about what the church is and in some regards, offer an apology as to how the church has let them down. The things the students wrote on the poster board ranged from the painful to the curious. Answers such as, “They didn’t help me and my mom when we needed help” or “The pastor took the money and ran away” or “The people there are hypocrites.”

Some of the answers were simple sentences packed with so much emotion, that you realized you were reading one sentence in a novel of hurt. As I prepared my message for the group, God reminded me that His church is flawed, but it is still His church. It is through the church that Christ is made known, imperfect as she may be. Or as Augustine said, “The church is a whore, but she is my mother.”

It is through the church that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places”—Ephesians 3:10. Christ has organized His church and set it up so that He might be made known in the world. All of those who have placed their faith in Christ collectively make up the church. And when we refuse to join a local body of believers (which is the local church), then we are denying our part in the body that Christ Himself has set forth to testify to His greatness and His majesty. It is in the body where we learn what it means to love God and love others. And as we do, Christ’s name radiates to those who are lost and draws them to the Savior.

Even though the church has failed miserably, she is still the vessel through which Christ is revealed. All who come to Christ make up His church and to say that we want Christ and not the church is to deny being a part of the very body He has chosen. And yet some still express, “I don’t go to church. I’m done with organized religion.” The irony of this statement is that every believer in Christ makes up the body of Christ, also called His church. A true believer desires to be part of His church, flawed though it may be. To remove oneself from the fellowship of the body of Christ is like taking a log from the fire and setting it aside and then expecting it to maintain its heat. The log burns as it is joined with the other logs in the fire, not by itself.

I told the students that the church is like being in the emergency room at a hospital. We are all patients trying to get to the great Physician. He is the only one who can heal us. But problems arise when some of the patients begin to assess the sicknesses of the other patients without allowing them to get to the Physician. The patients are bound to make grievous mistakes, but it’s not the patients who save, but the Physician. And Christ is the perfect and trustworthy Physician for all who are sick. As Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”—Mark 2:17. We can’t come to Christ until we understand that we are sick and it is those who are sick that make up the church of Christ. And we need the church, we come to Christ as individuals, but we are placed into a family—the family of God. And it is through the family of God, as it obeys the Word of God, that we know how to live in this sinful world and please God. Don’t give into the lie that we can be “spiritual” and not go to church—there is no such thing. It’s like saying, “I am a swimmer, but I don’t swim in any water.” It’s impossible. It is only through the church, the bride of Christ, that we come to understand and love our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:2). Amen.