Five reasons for getting back to real, live church.
Don’t get me wrong; online church has been a godsend. Literally, a solution sent from God. And church in slippers with a muffin in one hand isn’t half bad.
When quarantine or illness or family needs have kept us away, truth still enters our hearts through online church, and we even got to wave to each other in the comments section of the feed.
The day I began writing this, it was an ice storm, downing trees and power lines all over our community, that kept us home; even online church had been pre-empted by power outages. We were cozy, having just eaten an amazing candlelight breakfast, and I sat snug by my fire, intent on meeting with God anyway and maybe preaching to ma-self.
So why was I sad?
I stopped to dissect the soft ache in my heart, and it occurred to me that part of it was this: I miss you. I miss church. I miss going to the office, and laughing with friends over coffee, and singing Happy Birthday loudly without inhaling a mask.
I am blessed in a million ways that I treasure, but I miss community.
I am blessed in a million ways that I treasure, but I miss community.
In my prayer and pondering, I began asking God what place he intended the church to hold in our lives. Online church is convenient, but what are we missing if we choose to continue forever being a spectator of church instead of being on the field as an integral part of the team?
Here are five reasons why getting back to in-person church should be our ultimate goal.
We gather courage when we are together.
Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:25, BSB)
We can’t neglect community, because we all need courage!
Where has life thrown you some hard punches lately? For us, it is absorbing the loss of three parents in six months, the psychological and financial impact of multiple job losses, and adjusting to the physical challenges that come when you keep on having more birthdays.
Where do you need courage?
God’s blueprint is the rhythm of regularly meeting together. And part of the point of gathering and worshipping in community is to draw courage from one another.
Yes, I can dive into the Word and find courage and hope and help on my own—thank goodness! But God intends the act of stirring up courage—encouragement—to come from His community, too. On my own I can easily choose the lazy path, or just rehearse what I already know. Doing life together in community helps us to avoid error, confirm truth, feel valued, and find accountability, hope, and courage.
Community happens when we show up.
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Since Paul was ready to leave the next day, he talked to them and kept on speaking until midnight.
(Acts 20:7, BSB)
The follow-up to this lamp-lit moment of intimacy and teaching was the startling demise of poor Eutychus, who fell out the window! It happened, and in the drama of that story (spoiler: Paul raises him back to life) it is easy to miss a simple truth we need to know: It was the early church’s HABIT to meet together on the first day of the week.
“We came together.”
That’s the very first step to community: show up!
Come together. Come together REGULARLY on the first day of the week. Make the simple act of showing up your habit. Expect God to show up, too, and expect the synergy of communal worship and teaching to be different than what happens alone in your chair at home.
Friends, we need to gather. Not just read each other’s blogs and watch church from our couches—and I’m all for those! But we need to BE TOGETHER. We need to work out our salvation in community, in the annoying parts of community and needy parts of community and encouraging parts of community and truth-bearing parts of community.
What happens when we show up? Two things are noted in this scripture: we “break bread,” and we share in the wisdom of our teachers.
The Lord’s Supper, which for many of us means a tiny, symbolic cracker and a sip of red juice or wine, is a ritual that calls our minds back to the point of the gospel. Everything changes when the saving atonement of Christ’s sacrifice, the only thing that can transform us individually, brings us together in community. In the sacrament of breaking bread together we communally communicate and commune together by taking communion in community!
But perhaps we need to break bread in a way that’s more than symbolic as well. Maybe God intended for us to just simply share food and dine together.
Sharing bread is magic.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.
(Acts 2:46, ESV)
Amen! Amen.
During quarantine, before we were able to worship together as a church body, a few of us began gathering together in a friend's home to watch the service and share breakfast together. The hunger of our souls for connection matched our hunger for food, and also for the truth of God’s Word.
What happens in these times together?
We can’t wait to arrive, because someone with the gift of hospitality has set a lovely, warm stage where we feel loved and cared for.
We interrupt the sermon, because we can talk about it right in the moment, and get real as we apply it to our lives right then and there.
We talk, because we’re sharing not only our food with one another, but our lives, our struggles, and the lessons we’re learning.
We cry sometimes.
We laugh a lot.
We drink astounding coffee.
We stay too long.
And always, right there on the wall, hangs this scripture:
Time together in our generous friends’ home feels like luxury. We dine, we all share in bringing both our best and our ordinary, and the meals are predictably amazing. But equally generous and nurturing is the love, the wisdom, and the laughter that flows and heals around the table.
You can’t do community alone! Preaching to yourself (as I am doing on this very weird Sunday) can only call to mind what I already know. That’s a good place to start, but I need you! I need to see Christ modelled in your life. I need to be challenged by your faith. I need to hear your perspective.
As a community of Jesus-followers, we need new understanding, new accountability, new challenges, new opportunities to share our gifts and to receive from others. As we meet and give and receive, our burdens grow lighter and our hearts swell with joy. And when I leave these simple gatherings, my heart is as full as my belly.
Aren't you hungry for it, too?
Generosity is part of our mission.
Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.
(1 Corinthians 16:1-2, ESV)
Here’s that “first day of the week” assumption again! It’s the pattern of the early church, and Paul in this passage is reminding us to include in that pattern the habit of sharing materially with our community.
I have an advantage over pastors. It must be so awkward for them to remind us of this biblical directive, because it sounds like fund-raising, and maybe a little self-serving. But I can clearly call you—call US—to this collection of funds. Friends, we are not giving to an organization. We are faithfully collecting some of what God has given us as a collection for the saints—the believers, those we are doing life with.
Our leaders are not the ones doing the work of the ministry on their own. WE do the work of the ministry. And part of that work is sharing with one another.
We sometimes know best the needs of those in our community—someone out of work, or suffering after a loss, those with medical needs, or facing unusual circumstances. Give directly! Give physical items as well as money.
But there are also quiet needs which we do not know about, needs for others without a support network. And of course there are also the costs of the facilities and staff that we’ve determined are the best way to do community life. These don’t always tug at our heartstrings like a clearly visible need, but the steady flow of reserves to fund the unsung work of cleaning the facility or paying for heat should have our faithful, rhythmic support.
Preaching directly to me here, and I’m under conviction! I’ve lost sight of the biblical model to weekly think through what I can set aside for the needs of the community.
Shared prayer is our calling.
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke
to the women who had come together.
(Acts 16:13, ESV)
Even as Paul and friends travelled away from home, they kept the rhythm of gathering in Christian community going. Looking for others that were gathering to pray, they found Lydia and her friends meeting by the river, worshipping God as well as they knew how.
But this small, earnest group needed more knowledge. (Don't we all need more clarity?) As Paul and the others enlightened them, Lydia was moved to be baptized, and she joined their work by offering them hospitality in her home. The teaching of God’s Word, baptism, and hospitality are three more reasons for gathering together faithfully. And so is this:
Prayer.
When I was little, one of our weekly rhythms was attending prayer meeting at church. Another was praying together as a family after our evening meal. But sometimes the rhythms of past times don’t fit with what feels genuine today. So how will you and I pray together? Maybe it’s a gathering down by the river on the Sabbath, or meeting over a cup of coffee, or for now, doing coffee by Zoom. Maybe it’s me just having the courage to say, “Could we pray together about that right now?”
Prayer is life-giving. Not only is prayer our means of asking God for the things we and others need, but prayer is our only means of communicating back to God. It's as essential to our relationship with God as two-way conversation is essential to my relationship with you.
I do most of my praying alone. I hunger to pray because I am needy, and because I know the source of the supply of wisdom, resources, patience, hope, direction, comfort. But you know what I rarely do? Seek out others to pray WITH.
“We supposed there was a place of prayer.” Paul and friends assumed Christians gather to pray.
Where does your heart ache? Can I pray for you? What do you need? Can we lift you up to God together? We can if we are regularly doing community.
Friends, let’s do distance church well right now when we have to. Let’s soak in the teaching, pray sincerely from our heart. And then let’s also make a couple of phone calls. Let your church friends know they are needed, loved, not forgotten. Check on their needs. Pray for them.
It’s convenient, sometimes, to do church from the couch. It’s tempting to keep life “simple” and small moving forward, once we’ve gotten into the rhythm.
But let’s not stop asking how Christ intended his “body”, the church, to do community. Let’s take the risk and give more of ourselves than just showing up on a Sunday, in person or not.
TOGETHER we can find courage, grow in wisdom, listen to sound teaching, break bread, share our homes with glad and generous hearts, weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice, remember our redemption, cultivate glad and generous hearts, and bear each others’ burdens in prayer.
Community is both a tall order and a thirst-quenching lifeline.
I need you. Let’s do this better, together.
Wonderful, Kathy, wonderful!❤