A Thought on the Church

Well, as many of you know, we are about to release our new worship project called "Comfort". This project is for and about the church, and so I thought I would share a thought about the church that I came across today.

I have been reading John MacArthur, Jr's book called 'The Ultimate Priority'. It is a fairly short but incredibly loaded book on what is true and acceptable worship. In a discussion about the location of worship and the idea of a temple, MacArthur states that both individual worship (we are each a temple of God) and corporate worship (the fellowship of believers is a temple of God) spur each other on.

Basically, the idea is that we need to come together as a fellowship of believers to stimulate each other towards love and good works. At the same time, the worship we bring to the body of believers means nothing if we are not individually worshiping God during the week. There is a lot of conversation that we could already have at this point, but here is what I really wanted to share…

MacArthur goes on to state that,
“the source of most of the problems people have in their Christian lives relates to two things: either they are not worshiping six days a week with their life, or they are not worshiping one day a week with the assembly of the saints. We need both.

“If you go to church only when it is convenient, you will never be victorious and productive as a Christian. You can’t succeed on your own; you need to have the spiritual stimulation of fellow believers. We live in such an easy-come, easy-go, casual, flippant society that people don’t make consistent, faithful commitments, and then they wonder why they fail. The answer is clear. Spiritual (Christian) success requires commitment to others.” (105-106)

There are some pretty strong words here. In fact, even I, a lover of the church, found myself getting a little defensive as I read these paragraphs. Then I stepped back and realized that MacArthur is not discussing the excuses we may have for missing a Sunday. Of course life happens and sometimes we can’t make it. Rather he is discussing a mind-set that says that we can each make it without the church. I don’t think we can.

I also found myself convicted about attending church when it is convenient. Yes, if you know me you know that I work for the church. So it could be a little funny for me to feel convicted about this. However, I still had to ask myself about how often I might go to church just because I work there. Would I still go to church with the same consistency and dedication if I didn’t work there. I sure hope so.

I love the church and I do believe in it’s incredible value to our Christian walk. Now, once you have committed to being a part of the fellowship of believers, the next question becomes “do you come to church expecting to get, or ready to give?” Hmmmmmmm……