Tuesday, February 11, 2014


Why I Go to Church...


Last week, Donald Miller posted a blog entitled “I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere”, in which he explained why he doesn't attend church very often. As a widely-read blogger and Christian author (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years), he received the expected amount of backlash from such a revelation, and followed up with a second post “Why I Don’t Go to Church Very Often, a Follow Up Blog”.


I had already read both articles when my daughter e-mailed me to ask my take on the subject. (She knows I'm a big Donald Miller fan.) As much as I understood where he was coming from and agreed with some of what he had to say in his defense, I told my daughter that, for the most part, I wholeheartedly disagreed with him.

Don confesses he doesn't go to church because he is not an auditory learner, doesn't learn much about God hearing a sermon and doesn't connect with God by singing songs to him. Ironically, I do go to church despite, and in some ways, because of, the same reasons that he doesn't. I don't connect with God through music and I'm not an auditory learner. I'd rather read a sermon than listen to one. I wish we had written transcripts rather than sermon CDs and downloads. I'm tone deaf, and it takes really good lyrics and hearing a worship song about twenty times before I can begin to make it my own. Yet there I am, every Sunday... (My husband teases that it's the remnants of my Catholic upbringing - "Not going to mass on Sunday is a mortal sin!" that makes me show up every week.  No, it's not that...)

The bottom line for me has always been relationship/connection with God/Jesus. If I'm not connecting to God on my own on a daily basis (well, at least intent on a daily basis), then what's the point of any of it? I never go to church with the attitude of "Now I get to connect with God, finally! Now I get to learn!" Daily prayer (as in "talking to God" about whatever) and informal scripture study ("What's in this passage for me, Lord?") is where I connect. So why do I go to church? Partly obedience – God wants me there. I'm an off-the-scale introvert who, in another era, would be quite content living out my relationship with God in a silent monastic experience. People? To paraphrase Basil Fawlty - "This would be a perfectly fine hotel (church) if it wasn't for all these guests (people)!" The Lord has been busy breaking me of that attitude most of my Christian life. I feel God's hands on my shoulders directing me, sometimes pushing me, into church every Sunday morning. It's where I go to understand what "the body of Christ" means. There is something about being together with others in corporate worship that makes me see God's big picture. Sitting before God with “believers” in all stages of belief – babies, children, young singles, mature couples, precious friends and total strangers – gives me an understanding beyond words of what “church”, “Church”, or “CHURCH!!!” is about.

Just because I don't naturally connect with God through music doesn't mean I can't get drawn into His presence through good (or even bad) worship. I've had the experience (in small prayer groups in my past) of being in God's presence during worship that was amazingly bad musically, but incredibly rich with people wanting to be in God's presence. A paradox, I know, but it helped me separate musical ability from true worship. This was something I really needed to understand rather than just mentally check out of worship because my musical skills were nil. I see a good worship leader as someone who can step aside and let the music connect people with God's presence whether or not people, like me, are "into" the music. Fortunately, I am blessed to go to a church where those who lead worship know how to do this on a regular basis.

I'm a visual learner, a reader, not a listener. It takes a lot of concentration for me to focus on listening to a sermon. Yet, I am always glad I did. The bits that stay with me are definitely worth the effort. I sometimes later re-listen to the sermon on CD or on-line for added reinforcement. I also believe that God is present in a special way when His Word is preached and I often experience His presence during a good Biblical sermon. Why would I not want to be there for that freebie?

Lastly, I'm a big fan of spiritual disciplines (read "doing things whether you feel like it or not"). I see relationship with God as a marriage, something to be worked on and worked at and taken care of with little habits and routines that ensure the relationship is strong even when you may not "feel" the magic at the moment. Going to church is one of those routines. It's a public acknowledgment of commitment to both God and His people. It is a witness to the spiritual realm that, yeah, this is important to me, vital to my life. My daughter reminded me that in our good expectation of what God and His Holy Spirit will do for us during a church service, we have a tendency to lose sight of the Cross. We sometimes forget what God has already done for us. We forget Jesus came and died for our sins so we could have an eternal relationship with Him. When we remember this, the routine of going to church, rather than coming out of a sense of obligation, instead flows out of a sense of profound gratitude. I'm really grateful to be there...



The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him – and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by.
- From Crazy Love by Francis Chan