Transcription
So, we're seeing two different trends happening in the culture right now. On one hand, in certain places, church attendance seems to be making a rise in popularity again. There's a renewed curiosity about Christianity and people are asking more questions about the faith and you'll hear about younger generations showing interest in spiritual things again.
But at the same time, on the flip side, we're seeing the opposite trend unfold in other ways. More people are leaving the church today than at any point in recent history. And one phrase that has become incredibly common that you'll often hear is something to the effect of, "I'm a Christian. I just don't go to church." You'll hear people say things like, "My faith is personal to me." Or, "I have a relationship with Jesus. I just don't believe in organized religion." Or, "I don't need to go to church in order to be a Christian."
Now, to be clear, this isn't something that we're noticing anecdotally. This is part of a much larger shift and a much larger conversation that researchers have been tracking over the last few decades. There's a book called The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham where they examine what has happened in church attendance throughout the United States. And the numbers that they present are staggering. Listen to this. It says roughly 40 million people in the United States have stopped attending church in the last 25 years. That is epidemic worthy. That is an enormous shift in a relatively short amount of time. And what's even more striking is the comparison that they make historically. The authors point out that more people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the people who came to saving faith through the first great awakening, the second great awakening, and the Billy Graham crusades combined.
So in other words, we are witnessing one of the most significant shifts in church participation and attendance in the history of the western church. And what makes this moment especially interesting is that many of these people have not abandoned Christianity altogether. Many still affirm the core beliefs of, you know, they believe in God, they'd say they believe in Christ and his resurrection, and they would even affirm things like the Trinity. Culturally, they would say that they are a Christian. But what they've done is they've separated saving faith in Christ from commitment to a local church.
Now, before we go any further, I need to make something abundantly clear for any free grace trolls that are listening to this that are just itching to accuse me of lordship salvation. Going to church does not make someone a Christian. Salvation comes through faith in Christ alone. But once someone belongs to Christ, the New Testament paints a very clear picture of how believers are meant to live. And we'll get into that in a little bit. But anyway, the mindset that we see in those who separate their faith from commitment to a local church is usually something like, "My relationship to God is personal. I believe in Jesus. I just don't see any need for church." And in recent years and through the pandemic, I would say that this has just been accelerated further by the rise of online church and digital Christianity. People get a very false idea of community and watching sermons and watching worship services and consuming endless Christian content. And while those things can certainly be helpful in their specific circumstances, they also subtly reinforce the idea that church is something that you are simply just to consume rather than something you belong to and actively participate in.
But here's the problem with that way of thinking. The Bible, the New Testament, it never presents Christianity in this isolated, independent, individualistic pursuit type of way. It never describes believers as spiritual freelancers who have a relationship with Jesus on their own terms. Instead, the entire framework of the New Testament assumes that those who belong to Christ also belong to his people. From the very beginning, believers gathered together. They worshiped together. They learned together. They encouraged one another. They corrected one another. They prayed for one another. They bore one another's burdens. And at no point in scripture do we actually see that the Christian life was ever meant to be lived in isolation.
And the reason that we can say that with confidence is because when you open the New Testament, you quickly realize that Christianity is not presented in an individualistic type of pursuit. It is presented as a body of believers. The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 12. He writes, "For the body does not consist of one member but of many." And then he goes on to explain how just as the human body has many parts that depend on one another, so it is within the church. He goes on to say, "If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body." Paul's entire point is to say that believers are not meant to function independently of one another. We are designed to exist as members, a part of a body, each one connected to the others, each one contributing to the life and health of the whole. And if you remove a member from the body, it does not thrive. It suffers in isolation and it eventually dies. What good does a foot have if detached from the body? Interesting imagery, I know, but it does well to dismantle the idea that Christianity can be faithfully lived outside of life from the church.
Moving on, in Ephesians 4, Paul again describes the church as a body and explains that Christ himself has given leaders to the church for the purpose of building up the believers of the body. He writes, "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ." Notice the assumption there in that passage. Christ gives pastors and teachers to the church in order to equip believers. Which means that the normal pattern of the Christian life involves sitting under the teaching of faithful leaders who are entrusted with bringing the ministry of the word. And Paul continues on just a few verses later by describing how the body grows. He says, "From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." So in other words, the growth of a Christian is not meant to happen and is not possible for it to happen in isolation. It happens as believers are joined together, serving one another, encouraging one another, and strengthening one another.
And this is why we see throughout the New Testament that believers are continually repeatedly commanded to practice what are often called the one another commands. Love one another, bear one another's burdens, encourage one another, admonish one another, confess your sins to one another. Those commands appear all throughout the New Testament, and they all assume something very simple. You cannot obey them if you are not connected to the body of believers. And this is why the writer of Hebrews gives a very clear direct warning to Christians in Hebrews 10:24. It says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near."
Now, what's interesting about that passage is that even in the first century, the writer of Hebrews already recognized that a pattern was forming. He says, "As is the habit of some." And so in other words, even in the earliest days of the church, there were already people that were beginning to drift away from the gathering of the body of believers. And the writer of Hebrews treats that very seriously. And it's because the Christian life isn't just about receiving information. It's not just about hearing the truth in isolation. It's about persevering in faith. And God designed the church to be one of the primary means through which that perseverance occurs. Notice what he says in the verse right before it. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. That kind of encouragement cannot happen in isolation. You cannot stir up one another to love and good works if you have removed yourself from the very community that God designed for that purpose. And this is why scripture repeatedly presents church as something not optional for the Christian life, but as something that is essential to the life and growth of a believer.
So when someone says, "I'm a believer. I just don't go to church." I would begin to question what kind of relationship that so-called believer has with scripture. If God's word holds an authoritative role in your life, you will see that that belief is fundamentally in congress with the mature walk of the Christian. Now, scripture gives a number of clear reasons why believers are meant to gather together. But let me just give you three. And you shouldn't even need three. You should just really need one. And it's this first one. And it's that Jesus and the early church assumed gathering. In Matthew 18, when Jesus gives instructions about dealing with sin among believers, he says, "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church." So we see here that Jesus assumes that believers belong to a recognizable body of people called the church and that this community has real authority and accountability to the life of the believer. Fast forward then we see in considering the life of the early church we see in 1 Corinthians 16:2 Paul instructs believers on the first day of every week each of you to put something aside and store it up. And that instruction reveals something very important. The early church had already developed a regular rhythm of gathering on the first day of the week. And so the Christian life was structured around meeting together for worship, teaching and fellowship. So from the words of Christ to the patterns of the early church, gathering with believers was simply part of normal Christian life and is our best example we see in scripture.
Number two, God uses the body to grow believers. Being a part of the local body of Christ is a surefire way to be ministered by God through the power of his people. Paul explains this in Ephesians 4:16. He says, "From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." That means that believers are strengthened and corrected and encouraged and matured through the life of the body of the church. And of course, God grows and matures us in our private study and in our prayer life. But there is nothing and I can just affirm this in my own life. There is nothing like the wisdom and edification and encouragement that comes from your brothers and sisters in Christ. God has made us relational beings. So it's only natural that he grows us through the ministry of other believers. And in contrast to that, scripture warns us about the danger of isolation. Proverbs 18:1 says, "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment." Isolation does not produce a resilience or any sort of spiritual strength, but it produces vulnerability which leads to drift and decay.
And the third reason why you should be part of the local church is that Christians are called to serve others. As Christians, we do not gather just to receive and just to consume. We gather in order to serve and use our God-given gifts. And those gifts are meant to be used to the benefit of others within the body. And beyond that, many of the commands that Jesus gives his followers simply cannot be fulfilled outside the presence of other believers. Again, we have been created by a relational God to be relational beings. Jesus says in John 15:12, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you." So the command assumes that there's a shared life amongst believers. You cannot love one another. You cannot bear one another's burdens. You cannot encourage one another or you cannot build one another up if you have removed yourself from the very community that those commands are directed towards.
And so just putting a bow on all of this in summary, the picture that scripture gives us is very clear. The Christian life is not designed to be lived privately, independently or in isolation. It is designed to be lived among the gathered people of God. And that is really such a gift especially in living somewhere where the church is not being heavily persecuted as it is in certain parts of the world. But in light of all that, we still make excuses. We are broken in nature and we justify our behavior when we are rebellious towards God. And while there are a few common reasons that people don't attend church in some way, they are all steeped in pride or laziness. Some of them are understandable on the surface and some of them are simply matters of priority. But all of them need to be examined with honesty and humility in light of what scripture teaches.
And so the first one is probably the most serious and the most common which is church hurt. Many people have experienced genuine pain inside the church. Some have dealt with harsh leadership or hypocrisy or betrayal or gossip or situations where authority was abused. And while those experiences are real and damaging, they do not give us biblical grounds for abandoning the body of Christ altogether. Ephesians 4:32, Paul instructs believers, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. The church has always been made up of imperfect people. The New Testament church dealt with conflict and division and immaturity and sin amongst believers. The Corinthian church was divided. The Galatian church dealt with false teaching. Churches in Revelation were rebuked for serious problems. And yet, the solution in scripture was never to separate from the body entirely. The solution was correction, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. And so, while church hurt, abandoning the church completely is not the answer.
Now, with all that said, I think we can all agree and understand that there are certain situations where people are physically unable to actually get to church. And that is not at all the same thing as neglecting the church. The issue that scripture addresses in passages like Hebrews 10:25 is not for a lack of ability. There is a huge difference between somebody who is willfully deciding not to go to church and who is choosing neglect and the person who is physically unable to actually get to church. Moving on. I think that one's pretty straightforward.
Another reason people often neglect going to church is because life feels too busy. People say things like, "Well, my schedule is full or Sundays are the only days that I have for rest." But that explanation really just only comes down to priorities. Every person organizes their life around the things that they believe matters most. We make time for work. We make time for others. We make time for entertainment. We make time for hobbies. We make time for travel. So the question really isn't whether we actually have the time. The question is whether gathering with God's people is something that we believe is essential to the Christian life or merely optional when it's convenient. And if you take your faith seriously and if you believe that scripture is correct in presenting the church as the body through which believers grow, through which they serve, through which they encourage one another, then that act of gathering with the body cannot simply be pushed aside whenever life gets busy.
Now I know many of y'all are solutions-oriented and so let's talk about how to actually find a healthy church because I know that process can be overwhelming at times. In many places there are dozens of churches within driving distance which feels great but when you dwindle down to the details they all start to look very different from one another. different beliefs, different styles of worship, different emphasis, different traditions, different leadership structures. So, how do you know where to go? Well, first and foremost, I'd recommend you look into Nine Marks. This is Mark Dever's organization that exists to help churches reflect what the Bible actually teaches about the structure and life of a church. And their name comes from what they describe as the nine characteristics of a healthy, biblically faithful church. Some of the nine marks are expositional preaching, a right understanding of the gospel, meaningful church membership, biblical leadership, and church discipline. And if you look on their website, they have a church search type of tool where you can look up churches in your area that are committed to these kinds of biblical principles. Now, that doesn't mean that every church on there is perfect. It is a self-identifying process, but it can be a really helpful starting point if you're looking to find a church that takes scripture really seriously. I would also recommend that you ask a spiritual voice in your life if they have a recommendation in your area. Lots of people have connections to somebody somewhere else and so there's a good chance that you can get a referral from somebody that you trust.
And so once you begin looking for a church, I think it's helpful to think about, you know, the bigger picture of what you're looking for. And one helpful perspective comes from John MacArthur. To nobody's surprise, he mentions that if you were living in the time of the New Testament, you wouldn't have dozens of options. If you lived in Ephesus, there was only one church in Ephesus. If you lived in Laodicea, there was only one church in Laodicea. And believers at the time didn't church hop looking for like the perfect experience. They committed themselves to the local body of believers and sought to live faithfully within that community. And I think that's an important reminder because sometimes people avoid church entirely while waiting to go and find the perfect church or they spend weeks at home watching online before they actually go in person. But it's a good reminder for all of us that the perfect church does not exist. Every church is made up of sinners who are in the process of being sanctified. There will be weaknesses, disagreements, and imperfections in any congregation that you find.
So what should you actually be looking for? Well, the most important thing is how the church treats the word of God. Does the church take scripture seriously? Is the Bible being faithfully taught, explained, and applied? Many churches have statements of faith or creeds or posted on their website, but the real test is what actually happens when the word of God is opened. Is the pastor committed to teaching the truth of scripture, or is the message shaped more by cultural trends or politics or personal opinions? These are all good questions to ask. And beyond that, you want to look for a church that is faithful to the core truths of the Christian faith. And John MacArthur calls this the drivetrain. If you're familiar with John MacArthur, you probably know these points. It's the triune nature of God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the sinless life of Jesus, substitutionary atonement, and his literal resurrection and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Those doctrines form the foundation of historic Christian belief. Of course, there are loads of differences between churches on secondary issues, things like baptism, worship, church governance, and eschatology. But on the core tenets of the Christian faith, there must be clarity and faithfulness.
And once you find a church where the word of God is honored and Christ is exalted and the leadership is trustworthy. The goal is not to keep searching endlessly. The goal is to plant yourself there and become a part of that body. Worship with those people. Serve alongside them. Use the gifts that God has given you to strengthen others. We gather because we love the truth of God's word. And we gather because we love God's people. And scripture repeatedly reminds us that those two things are inseparable. 1 John 4:21 says, "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." And loving the people of God means living life together as part of the body which Christ himself established.