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
