Thinking About Church - Why Bother?

Why bother with church?  It’s a foolish question to the spiritually mature.  We immediately spout off all the clichés we’ve learned years ago; 

         Church is an assembly of like-minded people.

Church is Christ’s body.

         Church is opportunity to worship, serve and learn.

Yet in a nation of consumers, we’ve made a critical underlining assumption that no longer holds true.   And that is that people understand the VALUE of church.

We live in a consumerist society.  That much we all know and accept.  But who are these people?  Consumers are those who BUY.  They buy because they WANT, they want because they perceive VALUE.  Think of your job.  Our jobs in a consumer society are all about creating real or perceived value(s), so that our customers (the real bosses) will want our products/services and will BUY (a decision to purchase/acquire).  On this transaction the whole of western society is based.

The problem then facing us from an outreach/sustainability viewpoint is that people don’t perceive the value of church, so they aren’t buying it.

Now for the core, the value is obvious.  But for the rest – even the committed and especially the congregation and the crowd, the value is not easily perceived. 

Let me give you an example; We talk about prayer and we assume that the committed and those in the congregation understand the value of prayer – they just need to be spurred on, encouraged in it.  Yet I had an interesting conversation this week with a Christian I’ve known for some time on the value of prayer (and this is downstream of a very recent message on prayer, which they had heard).  They expressed to me frustration in consideration of that message.  God (in their opinion) is not answering their prayer(s), for certain key things expected had failed to happen – things only God could do, that need to be done.  Things they had prayed for, for a long time.  It’s not that they stopped praying in response, but that they were struggling with it – seeing answers to prayer in many other’s lives but not their own.

That crucial conversation (I should say opportunity, but that’s a different topic) caused me to realize that they weren’t perceiving the VALUE of prayer.  And if a committed saint can struggle with the value of prayer, how much more can a congregant or a member of the crowd struggle with the value of church! 

This is evident in time I spent today talking to people who have left our church but are not attending anywhere.  Without saying so bluntly, they answered the un-verbalized question, ‘why not?’;  Because they see it as ‘nice’, but only that – really for most of them it’s just an option, not a critically important and valuable part of their lives.

Now there are some critical facts that must be brought to mind;

1)   Hammering away about the importance of something is not offering value. 

2)   Value is perceived, not taught.  You can teach it, but it is not gained as knowledge – it is (suddenly in the midst of the teaching) perceived.  And…

3)   Value that is unobtainable is no value at all – it’s just head knowledge.

With these things in mind then, let us consider the value of church:

a)    Church is more than an assembly of like minded believers.  It is a FAMILY (Gal 6:10, 1 Peter 4:17).  Yet we don’t market it as such.  We market it as a place of worship, we market it as a place of service, we market it as a place where you’ll feel welcome.  But where is the value in all those things?  I can get those (speaking from a consumerist viewpoint) most anywhere. But if I treat family like that, I wind up the product of a system instead of a member of a family - I float from foster family to foster family, never really getting loved as I ought, because I never allow myself to create the deep relationship that I need.  The end result is the dysfunction (difficulty establishing meaningful relationships) and neediness that is evident in the shattered lives of those treated thus by our governments.  Why does the government do that?  Because a government can’t perceive value – value is only perceived by individuals, not by institutions.  We need to begin acting like a family, not like an institution.  This points to the need to do more ‘caring’ for those in our midst.  It shouldn’t be that months and months go by without a phone call to find out where you are - but to respond quickly we need some way of realizing who’s missing over reasonably short time periods.  What does that look like, how does that fit with privacy concerns and who owns that responsibility?

b)   Church is a place of BELONGING.  Just as a family is (or ought to be) a place of belonging.  A place where you have warmth, acceptance and love, but also a place where you have responsibility and service to do.  Yet we don’t treat those in our church as family.  We offer them warmth, acceptance and love and only HOPE they take up responsibility.  Now if your family adopted a foster brother or sister, and they refused to ‘chip in’ on chores and refused all responsibility, would you accept them as a family member?  Probably not.  And why not?  Because after a while (even a really long while) you would realize that this person doesn’t consider themselves a family member.  They’re waiting to be shipped off to the next foster family, and if not confronted they surely will be.  We need to have ‘fierce conversations’ with such people, so they will perceive the value we put on family (IF we put that value on the family of our church).  What does/should this look like?

c)    Church is real LIFE, for the church is the body of Christ.  As such, it must be doing the will of Christ (or else it’s not part of the body, but a cancer).  To that end, our value to Christ is directly proportional to our ability to communicate to the head (that is, Christ).  Prayer is the spiritual equivalent of the spinal column. Being part of God’s vibrant body is of tremendous value (that’s a healthy spinal column).  Being part of a sickly almost dead man (a damaged spinal column) is not.  Our value to fellow believers then is dependent on sustaining this open communication.   Let us understand then that to the degree we sustain open communication with Christ (read, PRAYER), to that same degree we will be the fragrance of life to those who are being saved.  (2Cor 2:15-16)