What is
church?
Is church
relevant? Does it matter if I skip a
Sunday here or there? Isn’t for those who are looking for friends?
It seems to me
that we have forgotten what church is about. We have made a simple formula
Church = Sunday services
If someone comes = Successful
church
But there is a
little more to church than this. In this paper I want to answer 2 questions:
1) What is church?
2) Why is it important?
What is church?
Church is the gathering of God’s people[1]. This sounds like what we expect, and it
sounds very ordinary. But this is not the case.
Since the time of
Adam and Eve people have chosen to try and live life without God. Have a look
around the world and you’ll see that it doesn’t work. Since we chose to try
life without God, that’s the judgment God gives us: He scatters us over the
face of the Earth (Gen 11:1-9). Ethnic cleansing, racism, xenophobia and
isolation are all linked to the decision to go our own way.
Fortunately for
us, we have a merciful God. He decided to start gathering us. Now this begins with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). It is
seen in Exodus when the Israelites are brought to
“He will raise a signal for the nations
and will assemble the banished of
And along with
redeemed
“The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of
This of course is
what Jesus came to achieve: to establish a new community that gathered with God
(Ephesians 2:11-22). Broughton Knox explains it like this:
“The basic verse
for the biblical doctrine of the church is Jesus’ words to Peter ‘in front of
this rock I will build my gathering’. Jesus’ promise is couched in terms based
on Deuteronomy 4 when God commanded Moses to gather the people in front of the
rock of Sinai on which God came and stood. The members of that gathering all
died in the desert through their unbelief, but death will not prevail against
those whom Christ gathers into his church”.
Why is it important?
The people of God are who Jesus came to establish. The very essence of becoming a Christian is to
become a member of the gathering that he died to create.
Jesus came to
establish a people. We are His bride (Ephesians 5:25-33), his body (1 Cor
12:12-14), his temple (Ephesians 2:21-22). We are part of God’s family (Mark
4:31-34). We are the new creation (Galatians 6:15). Jesus didn’t come to save a
person, he came to save a people.
More than that,
when we gather, God is with us (Matthew 28:20). This is why church is referred
to as a Heavenly gathering (Hebrews
12:18-24, Colossians 1:15-20, 3:1-4). It’s not a society or a denomination.
Every week there is an opportunity to meet with God and His people to whom you
belong. It’s an opportunity to rejoice, to spur each other on, to show love and
good deeds and to be transformed into Christ-likeness.
But this still
doesn’t show the priority that the Bible places on belonging to God’s family:
“Therefore, as we have
opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to
the family of believers.” Galatians 6:10
"Anyone who loves his
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his
cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:37-38
In the mind of
Jesus, following Him was more important than anything else. So too is how you
treat his people (Matthew 25:31-40, Acts 9:4-5).
Why should we go
to church?
1) That’s why we are called by Christ
2) This is my family. ..to not go is to deny
the purpose of the cross
3) It helps me keep going until we see Christ
face to face
If we are
convinced of the place of church in God’s plans and purposes then we must plan
our week to ensure we get there. It ought to be the first entry in our diaries,
around which everything else is organised.
Do I simply work
God in and around my already busy life? Or do I fit my life into God’s plans
and shape my life about what he considers important?