You Can’t Be a Christian Without Going To Church
Monks on poles, Power Ranger villains, and the reason our Western church is crumbling.
Now that I have your attention, let me clarify that poorly worded and vastly over-generalized title that still has a bit of truth in it.
Early in my faith I developed this notion that my relationship with God was between him and I alone. If I could do it on my own, great. Church was just the cherry on top.
Important, but ultimately secondary.
I once gave a message at my high school chapel on the importance of “relationship over religion”. I told everyone their faith is not about going to church - it’s about a personal walk with God.
Do I take it back?
No, not really… To a school that thought the Christian life was about driving to a building on Sunday morning while dressed differently than the rest of the week… well, it’s probably what they needed to hear.
Swing too far on the other side of the pendulum though…
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-13
Apparently, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” is something that must happen within a church body.
If your entire body were a bunch of hands, or completely made of eyeballs, aside from the bizarreness of the sight, you’d be a pretty useless life form.
Deep in the archives of my childhood memories, I remember the perfect representation - Eye Guy, the villain from Power Rangers.
This is what you look like trying to live the spiritual life alone, and it’s what church looks like when we put all the responsibility on the pastor and worship leaders.
Church is a complete body - to neglect the less admirable parts is to cripple its power.
We often read the New Testament as if it was written to us as individuals. Paul is instructing me how to live. But 85% of the New Testament is written to a church, not an individual.
And if that percentage isn’t high enough for you, out of the four letters that are written to individuals (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon), three of them are written to church leadership for the benefit of the church.
That leaves only one book out of the entire New Testament addressed to an individual, for an individual - and it’s still about unity (Paul’s letter to Philemon describing how his bondservant should be treated like a member of his own family).
It’s the Bible’s assumption that you are connected to a larger group of believers. There is no second option. To follow Jesus is to first and foremost realize you no longer live for yourself.
The cross crucifies our perception of individuality.
For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26-28
The gospel and the cross are multifaceted, solving many problems without a one-size-fits-all answer. It’s about atonement, but it’s not only about atonement.
It’s also about destroying the Jew/Gentile divide. Jews hated Gentiles and Gentiles hated Jews. They had different traditions, ideas about power and peace, and certainly different value systems.
Sound familiar?
Atonement is not only about paying for my sin. To stop the story there is like turning the movie off halfway through.
Because my sin (and ultimately the law) have been dealt with, the Jew/Gentile divide is finally destroyed and the Spirit of Jesus is ready to invade the hearts of those who would like to participate.
We’re so historically removed from this Jew/Gentile divide that it can feel of little to no relevance, but I’d argue that it’s more relevant today than ever before.
Our world is obviously polarized - politically, spiritually, racially, economically… the list goes on.
The gospel’s mission is to upend this tragedy and create a new type of people that are bound up in love for one another on the absolute basis of Jesus himself and his spirit in them.
This new people will live completely different than the Natural Order demands. They will share their possessions and love one another with a new love void of selfishness. They’ll encourage and heal each other through the power of the spirit, and so much more.
There is no favoritism. No division.
There is only unity wrapped in sacrificial love.
If you think I’m all talk, let me share a recent story.
This past Sunday we had a guest pastor. He said he felt the Spirit had given him a word to share with us (this is not abnormal for our church). He proceeded to ask if anyone recently had a car problem. Silence followed for about 10 seconds as everyone waited to see how this would pan out. Eyes scanned the seats as nobody raised their hand.
From behind the pastor’s head a hand pops up. It was our drummer (or little Congo drum thing that small churches have and I don’t know the name of).
He had tears in his eyes and a quivering smile on his face as he continued trying to play the background music. With just a simple hand raise, he was vulnerably able to communicate, “I’m stretched thin right now. I’m willing to receive your help.”
Over the next few days, members of our church gave out of their wallets (not the church accounting fund) to cover the full amount of the car repair.
This is church - the Spirit prompts, the believers obey, and the world is changed one community at a time.
Church is not your weekly inspiration time. It’s not self-help.
No podcast, live-stream, or Best of Live Worship Spotify playlist can take its place.
Church is not a building, service, band, or pastor.
It’s a marriage.
And ask anyone that’s married - it’s tough. Some days you just want to be alone so you can do what you want, when you want, how you want.
You want to be selfish really. No need to over complicate it.
But like a workout, nothing worth doing ever came easy. We shouldn’t be surprised, for Jesus himself said we have to “lose our life to find it”.
A crucial part of following Jesus is actually believing that he knew what he was talking about. I think the life he’s offering here is better than all our “hopes” and “dreams” and ideas about what we think would make our life great.
To hell with my consumeristic individuality! To hell with my American Dream! To hell with my god of self-improvement that constantly stomps on my neighbor to climb one more ring!
And just for good measure, to hell with retirement and its Margaritaville mirage. Who wants to die so disinteresting anyways?
I’ve had enough. It’s time to take the words of Jesus seriously.
So why do so many modern Christians think it’s just “me and Jesus”?
Where did this idea come from?
Part of it comes from our secular culture that’s unashamedly individualistic, bowing before the alter of self-actualization on a daily basis. Self actualization, defined very generally, is the idea that I have a “true and best self” out there and if I could only find it then I’d be happy.
This comes from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and there are certain checkboxes that a “self-actualized” individuals possess - authenticity, autonomy, creativity, continued growth, and peak experiences.
I’ve been pretty fortunate in my life - successful business, plenty of travels, the ability to take 7 hours out of my week to write this newsletter and be creative.
Spoiler alert: I’m happy, but I’m not fulfilled.
Something in me longs for more justice, truth, goodness, God.
Self-actualization is a good thing, but like all idols, it makes for a terrible god.
Don’t take the bait.
"The rise of individualism in our culture has led to an increase in feelings of loneliness and isolation, as people focus more on self-expression and self-fulfillment, rather than forming meaningful connections with others."
Jean Twenge, American psychologist and author
Yeah, so it’s obvious that our culture doesn’t value this idea of self-sacrificing community. But is culture to blame entirely?
Let’s not pull an Adam - the blame starts with us.
We first departed from the true model for church in the era of the desert monks1, men who ventured into the desert around 400 AD to spend the rest of their life alone in contemplative prayer, often breaking through into new realms of “intellectual insight”.
There was even a monk named Simeon Stylites who isolated himself atop an old pillar for 37 years as a form worship to God.2
God must’ve been so impressed with him… despite the fact that Simeon probably left his Bible3 at home, because this way of life is nowhere to be found in Scripture and would’ve been completely foreign to the early church.
If you’re a history nerd like me, go check out how Erimitism shaped the practices and beliefs of the medieval church. This totally screwed us up and there’s remnants of it remaining in our theology today.
Knowing and following God certainly involves moments of individual retreat, and I’m by no means neglecting the importance of us choosing to seek God for ourselves. Spend some days alone with him in the desert - Jesus did this.
But it was never his intention to stay in the desert because there was a broken world to get back to.
Jesus realized the pleasure God took in him. He did not need to sit atop a pillar, hoping to get closer to a God that was already with him.
And when he began his ministry, even Jesus had twelve people help out with the job.
See footnotes for info on church and missions.4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites
Or more specifically, his copy of the Muratorian Canon. This is a joke, kinda… If St. Simeon lived in 400AD or so, then he wouldn’t have had a copy of the Scripture we hold today (canonized around 500AD), so he couldn’t have “left his copy at home”. I stand by my statement that this is not the way faith is to be lived out though. I like to think this should’ve been clear to the Desert Monks given the tradition passed down by the early church, but I don’t know the faith they were brought up in specifically, and only God can judge. However, I stand by the statement, alongside footnote #1’s link, that the Desert Fathers had a profound impact on our concept of individualistic relationship with God not requiring church community.
My definition of church in this article should make room for missionaries that have been sent out on mission. Paul himself did not stay in one place, but was constantly traveling to plant and minister to other churches. To me, Paul is not an exception, but a shining example. He was not invested in just one church, but many. Read the tone in his letters. He is constantly wanting to be connected to his brothers and sisters in these churches. Seasonal isolation is a reality of life, but it’s not to be sought after as the highest spiritual life - that is the lie.