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DAILY DEVOTIONAL>
Why Bother with church?
July 6, 2008
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
Hebrews 10:24-25
Winston Churchill once said that he related to the church rather like a flying buttress: He supported it from the outside. (A flying buttress is an external support that reinforces the walls of old cathedrals.) I tried that strategy for a while, after coming to believe christian doctrine sincerely and committing myself to God.
I am not alone. Fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ. Some feel burned by a former experience. Others simply "get nothing out of church." Why bother?
Today, I could hardly imagine life without church. Church has filled a need for me that can't be met in any other way. An early-church leader wrote,"The virtuous soul that is alone...is like the burning coal that is alone. It will grow colder rather that hotter."
Christianity is not a purely intellectual, internal faith. It can be lived only in community. At a deep level, I sense that church contains something I desperately need. Whenever I abandoned church for a time, I found that I was the one who suffered. My faith faded, and the crusty shell of lovelessness grew over me again. I grew colder rather than hotter.
And so, my journeys away from church have always circled back to the church.
We join our hearts and hands together;
Faithful to the Lord's command;
We hold each other to God's standards--
All that truth and love demand.
THE CHURCH IS NOT A SELECT CIRCLE FOR A FEW, BUT A SPIRITUAL CENTER OPEN TO ALL.
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