Is church attendance required or even essential?

[Sam Adams]

Ayin jade:

Yes I do, and I pray I will move past this current season.

Let me ask everyone this. Is it not a problem that a person has to try dozens of churches to find one that teaches the truth and has people that are not so full of themselves it is possible to spend time with them.

[Guest LadyC]

Lady C:

My sincerest apologies, this thread has been moving very rapidly and I do not mean to ignore you.

I do not like to attend church at this time because I do not like the people who fill most of them. I receive no edification at this time, I walk away feeling worse than when I walked in the door. It is truly that simple.

I went to church and was myself, I found people preferred mask, it made things so much easier for them. If no one ever has any bumps in the road they didn't have to figure out what to do about them.

 

i eat the words i just spoke elsewhere wondering why you were refusing to respond here. in any case, like i said... this is a universal problem and has existed since the beginning of time, which is why paul spent so much time writing letters to churches about their worldliness. and yet he never used it as justification for anyone to not go.

 

i know it's hard to find a church that you can really fit with. i KNOW! i've been there! and the only way i finally found one was with a lot of prayer for God to direct my steps to a church where i can feel at home.

 

you asked someone else what doctrinal authority one should follow. i know you were being facetious but the answer is really very simple. you submit to God's authority. the authority of the Bible. and you find fellowship wherever you can be spiritually nourished under solid teaching of God's word. it doesn't matter what denomination or what church umbrella you find yourself under. the current church i've finally found after only half-heartedly looking for three years is a calvary chapel. the church that i made my home in vegas for five years was a pentalcostal church under the foursquare banner. before that it had been years since i'd been established in a church, and that one had been a bible church... i think they're independant, aren't they?

 

church fellowship is a gift to us, and is for our edification. it doesn't make a hill of beans to God whether you go or not. but He wants you in one so that He can more fully meet your needs... and don't say your needs are all filled, because unless you have regular fellowship with other christians, they aren't. and if that wasn't true, you wouldn't have brought up this discussion because it wouldn't have mattered.

 

and contrary to what someone else said a few posts back, message boards do not serve as an adequate substitute. nope, this is no sort of church, and it is not really a fellowship. frankly, it's more of a distraction from spiritual nourishment, and is a constant source of conflict to anyone who ventures into any thread that discusses politics or world events. not saying coming here is a bad thing, but we can't make it out to be a healthier environment than it truly is. 

 

so really, could it be that you've simply given up on seeking fellowship within a church? that you've become so bitter and hardened by the superficiality you've found that you just don't have it in you to put any more effort forth towards finding a church where you can feel at home? one where you might consider overlooking the glaring faults of others and allowing them to overlook yours as well?

 

people are people. whether in or out of church, we're all human and we all put on masks. we don't want the world to see the raw naked truth of who we are. it's not until we give people a chance that they start allowing their brokenness to be on display. it's not just you that needs the fellowship of others, sam. others need the fellowship of YOU, as well.

[Guest LadyC]

Is church solely about edification for ourselves? Isnt it also about worshiping Him?

 

jade, yes, we do worship Him in church. and we are edified by doing so. i know what you're saying though... and while i agree, i've actually come at this with the opposite approach. church fellowship is for us. maybe that's over-simplified though. it's really more of a symbiotic relationship. God is edified through our worship and praise, and we are edified by giving Him that. but we're also edified by the fellowship of other believers.

 

here's something i think i forgot to say in all my rambling to sam. when we ostracize ourselves from church fellowship, we actually do damage to our spiritual walk. without fellowship, it is very difficult to stay focused on God. we tend to forget to pray, forget to sing praises, and most importantly, we tend to stop lifting up our fellow christians because we have shut our eyes to their own struggles.

[ayin jade]

Ayin jade:

Yes I do, and I pray I will move past this current season.

Let me ask everyone this. Is it not a problem that a person has to try dozens of churches to find one that teaches the truth and has people that are not so full of themselves it is possible to spend time with them.

 

It isnt surprising that one has to do that. Jesus did ask if He would find faith in the end times. Is it really surprising that the enemy is corrupting the church? But there are good churches out there. Ask the Lord to show you, and ask Him to soften your heart towards them as well. 

[ayin jade]

 

Is church solely about edification for ourselves? Isnt it also about worshiping Him?

 

jade, yes, we do worship Him in church. and we are edified by doing so. i know what you're saying though... and while i agree, i've actually come at this with the opposite approach. church fellowship is for us. maybe that's over-simplified though. it's really more of a symbiotic relationship. God is edified through our worship and praise, and we are edified by giving Him that. but we're also edified by the fellowship of other believers.

 

here's something i think i forgot to say in all my rambling to sam. when we ostracize ourselves from church fellowship, we actually do damage to our spiritual walk. without fellowship, it is very difficult to stay focused on God. we tend to forget to pray, forget to sing praises, and most importantly, we tend to stop lifting up our fellow christians because we have shut our eyes to their own struggles.

 

 

It took awhile but I finally found one I liked. Then it went kind of off tangent with some weird stuff and we left it. Finally found another one we like. The first one restored my joy in worship. For which Im grateful. Before that I was looking at church merely for its doctrine and sermons. Not for worshiping our Lord. Now I have both. 

[Guest LadyC]

jade, i have both too, now... and i'm blessed even more so because friendships are being formed, and it seems as though God choreographed it Himself. we're still new at this church... and two weeks after we started, another couple started there. we just seem  to have really clicked with them... and they live five blocks away, they moved here from las vegas, the wife doesn't work (is retired) and has similar interests as me (and i don't work either). 

[OneLight]

Whether or not one goes to church is a personal decision between themselves and God.  Bringing which side you sit on into the public for discussion is painting yourself as a target for those who believe in the opposite side of you.  That being said, let's be respectful in our replies, no matter where you side on the subject.

[Guest]

 

God Bless Us

 

“A new command I give you: Love one another.

 

As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34 (NIV)

 

One And All

 

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

 

if you love one another.”John 13:35 (NIV)

[Guest shiloh357]

It's easy to always blame someone else for why we don't go to Church.  It's easy to judge others as unfit for our fellowship.   It's like saying, "if everyone at church was as perfect as me, then they would be worthy of my fellowship."      Churches are made up of people who are, well....  people.  They are people who are at different stages in their walk with God.  Some are new believers and many are still learning the things of God.   They have drawback in their personalities and they have bad habits that annoying idiosyncrasies.

 

Everything we criticize about people in churches cuts both ways.  Each of us has flaws and drawbacks in our personalities.  We all have fallen humanity, we all have flesh and for all of our criticism of those in church who we judge as too worldly, or stuck-up or who are otherwise hard to get along with, I bet there are others in churches who can produce a long list of things about us that makes them wish they went to a different church, sometimes.  It's easy to sit and judge others in churches and complain that they are full of themselves and impossible to be around, but rarely do we want to talk about our own  contribution to the problem.  Remember, there are always two sides to the story.

 

You will never find a church that meets all of your criteria, just like you will never marry a perfect person.   What if we treated marriage like we treat church attendance?  What if we decided to drop out of marriage, every time our spouse was selfish, or prideful, or annoying in this or that way?   What if every time the relationship got difficult and required more forbearance and forgiveness than we were anticipating, we decided to just no longer be married??

 

• It would be nice if every church were made up of 100% selfless, all-loving people with servant hearts and who do everything from 100% pure motives all of the time who never have bad days, who never have mood swings, who have no personality flaws, or pride issues,  who only emit the fruit of the Spirit and have no flaws in their personalities and everyone always practices what they preach. 
• It would be nice to find a church where no one looks worldly, or needs discipleship and where everyone has the perfect Christian life and they have no baggage from their past to deal with and everyone has holiness down to a fine art.
• It would be nice to find that church where the preacher's sermons are a homerun every Sunday and is able to please all of the people all of the time. 
• It would be nice to find that church where every worship service was like walking in the New Jerusalem and the worship leaders only picks songs that minister to me and everything just goes my way. 
• It would be nice to find a church that never has to ask for money, that has a miracle working ministry team that can pull ministry and outreach out of a paper bag and the church just runs on air without anyone having to tithe, or give sacrificially for any kind of outreach, where I can be served without having to lift a finger to share the load. 
• It would be nice to find a church that runs like  well-oiled machine that has every ministry imaginable that has plenty of activities and fun stuff for the kids and I don't have expend any effort or spend any money that requires more of me than to just show up and grace everyone with my presence.  
• It would be nice to be a part of the church where the cost never outweighs the benefit.  

 

That fantasy perfect church doesn't exist.  I am glad it doesn't.  'Cause the minute I join it ceases to be the perfect church. We set some pretty unrealistic standards for what a church is supposed to be and then act we are just too good to attend because everyone else is just too flawed, too full of themselves and don't deserve our friendship or fellowship.  We tend to minimize our own faults while maximizing the faults of others and we fail to see that churches are full of people who still need grace and forgiveness and forbearance. And when others don't measure up to our fantastic, unrealistic, unreachable standards (standards that we would never hold ourselves to), we throw in the towel and act like church just isn't worth it.

 

I have been on this board for a long time and I can't count the number of times we talk about how that if Jesus were here physically he would be down on the streets with the poor, the down and outs,  the sinners that everyone has written off. We talk about how Jesus spent his time with the imperfect people, the ones who the religious crowd didn't feel were worth their time.  Yet, when we encounter those people in our churches, that becomes our excuse to distance ourselves from those "worldly," sinful living, people who are too hard to love and are not worth our patience and forbearance and certainly not worth our time and forgiveness.   The hypocrisy is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

[Guest Butero]

My biggest issues with church are lack of sound doctrine and phoniness.  I have yet to find a church that teaches sound doctrine anywhere, and many of the churches will change their doctrinal position if it helps them gain more members.  I have watched churches lower their standards to gain more members.  The churches seem so concerned about numbers, they will do whatever some church growth seminar tells them to do, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.  Most are all about money.  So long as people attend that church only and pay all their tithes there, and I mean 100 percent of them, they will overlook nearly everything else, but if they break those two great commandments, they are mud.  Are all churches like that?  Most that I have seen are. 

 

Now, I realize that one person's idea of sound doctrine is different from another's.  For instance, I have easily opened myself up as a target of someone who will accuse me of believing and teaching false doctrine, and say the problem is with me.  To that, I would say so what?  If they are saying that about me, I am thinking that about them, so I will save them the trouble of making that charge. 

 

One thing I am concerned about regarding Sam Adams is this deal with beer.  I have no issue with someone drinking in moderation, but if that is the real reason for avoiding church, and that is it, beer appears to have become an idol.  You can make an idol out of almost anything.  There are many churches that have an issue with anyone drinking any amount of alcohol, but there are many that don't teach that.  If that was my only issue with church, it would be easy to find a church home that wouldn't care if I drank occasionally.