Why I Go To Church
By Jessica Brodie
For a long time, even though I was a Christian, I didn’t enjoy going to church. I felt closer to God when I was alone in nature rather than in a formal worship setting, and it was sometimes hard to force myself to attend. It didn’t matter which type of church I was in, or which denomination—I was shy, and the thought of having to “do people” and simultaneously worship God felt awkward.
There was always a good excuse to skip or sleep in too late on Sunday morning. As a kid, Sunday school seemed “boring,” and as a teen, I didn’t like youth group—the other kids seemed snobby or too “perfect.” As a young woman, I always felt like the “token young person” sitting in the back pew.
But after I had kids, I became a regular churchgoer, if more to keep my promise to God than anything else (I’d promised God that if He blessed me with kids I’d make sure they were raised in faith). It was tough at first. My attendance was sporadic, and it got super difficult when my oldest was struggling with separation anxiety and having to stay in the kids’ room. Yet we stuck it out. (It really helped that my church had a Saturday night service for a while, which meant my kids stayed with me in the sanctuary, and my youngest could wear her fairy-ballerina costume to church, complete with wings, without any weird looks.)
As bad as it sounds, “forcing” myself to go worked, and I grew more and more comfortable. Now I look forward to church every Sunday.
Going to church doesn’t make us a Christian any more than going to school automatically makes us a student. I know people who have attended church for years and still do not truly believe in Jesus. But there are some serious benefits about churchgoing, and I’m not talking about the “becoming a better person” or “surrounding myself with good influences” kind of stuff, either.
Jesus clearly wanted people to be involved with church. As He told His apostle Peter, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18 ESV).
In his letter to the early church in Corinth, the apostle Paul said, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). And the author of Hebrews urged believers to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
Here are the three key reasons why I go to church:
1) I need God. I’m broken and can’t fix myself. I rely on the messages, the teaching, and the infusion of the Holy Spirit to keep me on track.
2) I need other people. I used to think I didn’t, but I do. I need them in order to be part of the full body of Christ, as the apostle Paul noted. Together we are Jesus, and He is our head. I am not all, and I’m not His only daughter. I’m part of a multitude, and being in church with other believers reminds me of that.
3) I need to worship God. I need to stand and dance and sing and raise my hands and lift my soul to Him. It’s part of my “job”—surrendering my life, putting my focus on the Lord, celebrating God, and thanking Him for all He has done for me. As Hebrews 13:15 tells us, “Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” And as Romans 12:1 says, we are “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
There are many more reasons to go to church, but these are the most critical for me. How about you—do you go to church? Why or why not? If you do, why?
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