A question was recently asked on Facebook: Why do you "go to 'church'"?
Here's my answer:
The
"church" is designed as an alternative to the community of the world,
as a different "nation" than the nation of USA or the nation of Mexico
or the nation of France, etc.
If you lived in England but wanted to be a USA citizen, and you went through all the necessary process to do so, and then refused to live in the USA, what kind of USA citizen would you be?
A lousy one.
I
can be committed to God without necessarily being committed to the
kingdom of God (from "outside"), but I can't be a good citizen of the
kingdom of God without being committed to that kingdom's community.
God
doesn't tell us to "go to church to worship me" (the reason most of us
have been taught since childhood for attending); rather, he tells us,
over and over to, "be involved with one another; teach one another;
encourage one another; bear one another's burdens; share with one
another; love one another".
When you're alone, you can worship God. But when you're alone, you can't be one-another-ing.
Right
now, "going to church" offers very little personal value to me, and
often "costs" me something (not sleeping in; feeling more discouraged
after attending than before; being bored; etc), and it would be easy to
"skip church". But if I skipped, I'd essentially be saying "I'm not even
going to try".
I can't control how the assembly
goes; but I can control whether I go to assembly. And God told us to "go
to assembly", not to worship him, but to "one another" each other.
Whether the one-anothering actually happens is beyond my control in many
respects, but I *can* control whether or not I'm there, available for
one-another-ing.
And that's why I "go to 'church'".
Originally posted at:
http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2016/12/why-do-i-go-to-church.html
