Hey Christian, Go to Church.

“If you don’t go to church regularly, you’re going to hell.” “You can’t get into heaven unless you’re a regular church-goer.”

Have you heard something along the lines of these statements lately? Didn’t think so. I haven’t either, because such statements are completely false (If you have in fact heard them, shame on anyone who expressed them!).

Nevertheless, what is alarming to me is a growing trend among Christians to set up straw man statements like those above, against which they then proceed to argue the point that Christians don’t need to go to church to be Christians. It’s a sort of “what we do during the week matters more than just one hour on the weekend” mentality.

Of course Christians don’t need to go to church to be Christians! A building or a religious service don’t make people Christians – faith in a Savior who lived, died, and rose again to solidify our salvation is what makes Christians. And faith in that Savior is all that will ever make Christians. Let’s agree on this point and put it behind us.

But doesn’t such faith in a Savior who lived, died, and rose again to secure our salvation also gravitate toward that same Savior? Don’t faith’s ears hunger to be filled with the good news of that Savior again and again? Doesn’t faith’s heart yearn to gather together with fellow believers to bear burdens, build up, and encourage one another as the Savior compels us to do?  Don’t faith’s hands glory in giving back to the Savior its best offerings? Don’t faith’s failures crave forgiveness? Aren’t all of these longings met in the hearing of Scripture, the remembering of my baptism, and my participation in the Lord’s Supper, all of which happen together… at church?

No, Christians don’t need to go to church to be Christians. But if I were to go on a search to find a Christian somewhere, wouldn’t church be the ideal place to start? Wouldn’t we expect to find Christians delighted to gather together wherever the Word of God is proclaimed?

It’s been said that sitting in church doesn’t make a person a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes one a car. True, but at the same time, if I’m looking for a car, wouldn’t a garage be a pretty reasonable place to begin my search?

Christian, go to church. Not because you have to. Because you get to. In Christ Jesus you have been set free and in church (worship) God extends to you an all-access pass to the unlimited riches of his grace and blessing, and you won’t find them anywhere else like you will in church.

“I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD'” (Psalm 122:1).