Make the choice on Saturdays to attend church in the morning. Even if you haven’t been to one in a while, it’s worth just checking one out. My family is on the hunt for a new church due to relocating, and here’s a few reasons why we won’t succumb to the temptation to stay home on Sundays:
it encourages and refreshes my soul. we calibrate our priorities when we make a local church a nonnegotiable in our week our children learn and grow in the ways of God. Home teaching is reinforced in our children in a healthy church. we find like minded people who are on the same path with us. Traveling life alone is a recipe for failure if we didn’t go, we’d be just vegging at home anyways, sniffing each other’s farts. There’s a lot worse ways to spend 2 hours on a Sunday than being in a corporate worship service our eyes get off of ourselves and onto the Kingdom that’s bigger than any of us. During a time where America is not doing amazing, it’s important to remember we exist for another world and this is not our long term home.
church does not save us. Yes, we can go to heaven without it. You don’t have to have sex to stay married either but it makes it a heck of a lot more fun. church is not a religious check box. We don’t go because we are obligated to. We go because life is better in a healthy church. it’s extremely selfish to stay home and do church online. We have gifts, callings, and wisdom to offer those around us and we must be careful to stay contributors to the world around us and not just become consumers.
If you’ve been out for a while or church is just an optional activity for you, I encourage you to re engage. If you’ve been wounded, disappointed, or let down by a church, I am truly sorry. At some point, it’s time to get back in the game and forgive. Not all churches are bad (most aren’t) and not all pastors are spiritually abusive (most aren’t).