What’s the Deal with Church? Do I Have to Go?

Excerpt taken from A Short Guide to Church: What Is It All About? by Dean Inserra

Chapter 1
What’s the Deal with Church?
Do I Have to Go?

THERE IS MORE TO being a Christian than going to church, but there is certainly not less. The local church is significant in the lives of those who follow Jesus Christ, whether through its presence or its absence. Of all the pushback I get on social media from professing Christians, the most consistent negative comments come when I assert what I thought was a basic understanding: Christians should go to church. The rebuttal is predictable, almost automatic: “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” And, of course, church attendance does not forgive sins or reconcile anyone to God. It is by grace we have been saved, through faith, not by works (Eph. 2:8–9). We are forgiven and saved from God’s just punishment of sin through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. One does not have to go to church or do any other work whatsoever to be saved, since Jesus has done all the work through his perfect life, death on the cross, and glorious resurrection.

The New Testament is full of inferences and references to the role of the church in the life of a believer. The professing Christian who does not go to church will say that one can “have church”—on a boat, playing golf, sitting on the back porch enjoying a Sunday morning coffee. “It is about your personal relationship with God.” While I want to acknowledge that these individuals may have been taught that at some time in their lives or been convinced of it by a friend, Scripture just does not recognize an unchurched Christianity. Yes, we can have a personal experience with God anywhere in creation, but that is not the ultimate point regarding the Christian and the church. The better option is to discover and pursue what God has willed and designed for his people to live out the Christian life and experience.

Throughout the New Testament, God’s design for his people is the church. Outside of an important instruction from the writer of Hebrews for the Christians not to neglect gathering together (Heb. 10:25), you may not think there are an abundant number of slam-dunk, drop-the-hammer, case-closed commandments about the Christian being part of the church. However, the letters of the New Testament are written in the assumed context of local church congregations. If I am telling you about the game Tom Brady played where he threw touchdown passes, I don’t also have to inform you that he’s playing football. The context is the football game. Similarly, the Holy Spirit-inspired New Testament letters are addressed to actual churches. Local churches are the context.

The claim that “we are the church; we don’t go to church” sounds spiritual (and is not completely wrong), but there is much scriptural emphasis on the local church, perhaps even more than the universal church. The New Testament letters were written to actual, organized churches that existed at the time. This is the context for living out the new life to which we are called. Jonathan Leeman wrote that “membership in the universal church must become visible in a local gathering of Christians.”1

As a pastor, I officiate weddings on a regular basis. I count it as a privilege to be asked by a couple to stand with them on their wedding day, share the Scriptures concerning marriage, lead them in their vows, and pronounce them husband and wife. My relationship with the couple is certainly a major reason officiating is meaningful, but there is an even greater reason. I am getting to take part in God’s model for his church: a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church.

At the beginning of the ceremony, after I welcome the guests on behalf of the bride and the groom, I remind the wedding guests that they did not simply fill out an RSVP form and choose chicken, beef, or vegetarian for their meal at the reception. They are not merely spectators. By attending this wedding, they are witnesses to God’s grand design, affirming that they approve what is taking place. The bride and groom are participating in what God has made, and the guests get to affirm this grand plan.

Another grand design for God’s people is the church. I believe Christians should see local church membership as the great privilege of getting to take part in and belong to the design God has given specifically, uniquely, and specially for his children, his people. Unfortunately, many who claim the title of Christian do not embrace this design. Data from a study conducted by Christian researcher Ryan Burge finds that

the number of self-identified evangelicals who attend church regularly continues to drop, with 26.7 percent saying they seldom or never go to church. About 13.5 percent of self-identified evangelicals say they go to church “yearly,” bringing the number of evangelicals who go to church once a year or less to about 40.2 percent. About half of self-identified evangelicals attend weekly or more, with the other 10 percent saying they attend about once a month.2

Making the church a priority in the lives of Christians is dwindling, and even nonexistent for some. Yes, church is somewhere we physically go, but much more, it is something to which we belong as members of the body of Christ. Our membership in the body of Christ is universal, applying to believers throughout history, across the world, past, present, and future, and it is expressed locally through specific congregations. To be a Christian and not have the church as a significant part of one’s life is either to deny or neglect God’s design. It is not an exaggeration, then, to call the trend of an unchurched Christianity a crisis. But before we dive into an overview of what the church is and what it does, I want to cover some potential reasons the unchurched Christian is a reality.

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