I am shocked that we are still asking people to go to church. Usually this happens when attendance at worship services goes down or we know of Christians who skip going to Sunday worship services. Such exhortations are usually backed up with reminders of the benefits of attending worship services. One will encounter God, hear His word, be inspired, be healed, etc. Even science tells us that those who attend religious gatherings regularly will live longer. So why should we stop asking people to go to church? One, it corrupts the true meaning of the word “church”. And two, it reduces corporate worship into another way of getting more blessings from God. It makes worship about the worshipper rather than about the One being worshipped.
In the New Testament, church is never about an activity, like corporate worship, or even about a building. Church is always people. The root word for church, ekklesia, means a gathering of people. The church is God’s people who gather from time to time for various purposes, e.g., to praise God and to learn together (Colossians 3:15–17), to encourage one another to serve Him (Hebrews 10:24–25), and of course to remember Christ in the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17–34).
Therefore one does not go to church. One is the church. A Christian is part of the church. We are members of God’s family (Ephesians 2:19). As God’s family, we gather from time to time for various spiritual activities. If we truly love our church family, we will want to gather with them to care for one another, to learn together, and to worship God through prayer and song. So it’s not “going to church”. It’s gathering with family to live out our love for God and for each other. When we forget this, we forget a key dimension of Christian identity. God is our Father. We are His children, His family. And we gather from time to time to worship Him and to serve His purposes.
I have no doubt that we will be blessed if we regularly partake in corporate worship. But our primary motive for worship is not to get stuff from Him. Our worship is fuelled by thanksgiving. Romans 12 tells us that God has already blessed us overwhelmingly. He has blessed us on the Cross and through all other blessings since, and He will continue to bless us. One of our greatest blessings is to be adopted as His children (1 John 3:1–3). We respond to His love by offering up our whole lives to worship Him, including our corporate worship. Our motivation in worship then is not “come to worship and be blessed” but “see how much the Lord has blessed us, let us gather to give thanks to Him and glorify His Name.” Will we be blessed if we worship the Lord? Of course. But we first worship out of a spirit of thanksgiving. Because we are so grateful, we can’t help but open our mouths in praise (Psalm 95:1–2).
So please, don’t tell the saints to go to church. It cripples their spiritual formation. Remind them that they are church and they are to assemble with the church family regularly to corporately express their love for Father and for each other. And don’t entice them to go to worship services with promises of blessings. Remind them of the overwhelming love of God and pray that that will evoke a response of praise, thanksgiving, and love. Aiyoh, let’s put a stop to asking people to go to church. Careless language teaches wrong theology and will lead to deficient spiritual formation.
