Christians and Church

Do Christians have to go to church?

The short answer is no. To be a Christian, according to Jesus, you must “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.” Even in unpacking what that means, it cannot be construed to mean church attendance is mandatory. In general, unless hindered by circumstances, Christians go to church because they want to. Why? I surmise that Christians go to church to worship with other Christians. Worship occurs as we study the Bible, learn from those gifted by the Holy Spirit to teach, repent from sin, encourage each other, sing to and about God’s goodness, etc. It should be a serious, weighty but encouraging experience.

Notice I wrote “should be.” Many times when someone says to us, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t go to church”, it’s because they have had very negative experiences at church, at times even life-altering negative experiences. Others make that statement to get us to leave them alone. They want us to think that they are ok so we can move on to “harassing” the next person!

It takes time and patience to figure out if the person really is a Christian and needs help recovering from some difficult circumstances and possibly some better teaching about the function of church.

For the person who just wants us to go away, I think it would be time to dash the false hope of general belief in God.  The demons believe and shudder.  Many people do not shudder because they feel secure in just hoping everything will be okay in the end!  It is much more merciful for us to point out that thinking like that is a gamble with no odds of winning.