Have you ever wondered if going to church is actually important or if God even cares? After all, there are definitely mornings I don’t want to get up and go, so I really want to know if going to church adds value to my life and find out if it makes me a better person.  

Let’s dive in and take a closer look by starting with the common objection to going to church that goes like this. . . “Imagine all the sermons you have heard in your lifetime and how few, if any,you actually remember. I just don’t see how church makes you a better person.”  

To address these very legitimate concerns, let’s start with a purely logical approach. Consider that I am 38 years old and have eaten approximately 40,000 meals in my lifetime – yet I cannot remember the menu for more than a few of them. These meals fed and strengthened me and whether or not I remember eating them is irrelevant to the nourishment I definitely received.

From an emotional, or personal point of view, when we ask, what makes someone a “better person,” we notice there is a large degree of relativity, which makes it hard to define.  While many people who go to church believe that going to church does indeed help us to be better, we could also flip the question around and ask if and how I would be a better person if I didn’t go to church?

Perhaps we can reason this out, by starting with an absolutely rock bottom certainly. . . That I’m a sinner. So I go to church because life tries to pull me off course and I like to be reminded of what’s truly important to me. Plus, when I’m at church, I get to praise God for saving me, right along with other sinners who are there for the same reasons, and often times we make new friendships.

Out of all the people who go to church, rich or poor, democrat or republican, white or blue collar, no matter what our race – we all have at least one great big unifying factor – that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.  Yes, we sin, we’re selfish, we are occasionally hypocritical and we know it.  It really is quite a commonality when you think of it.

Furthermore, we are all hungry for love and relationships. But most of all, we are hungry for purpose and truth which leads us to God.  And when the nourishment of Jesus feeds me so well, I like to experience and share it with others.  It’s like cheering with the stranger next to you after your team scores – just because you’re fans for the same team! This togetherness, and being on the same team, is very attractive to me and a lot of other people who are on a team called churchgoers.  

On the other hand, we can be quite certain that Satan tries to push me out of church, because he is like a wolf who goes after strays.  We’ve all watched documentaries how wolves try to separate an animal from the protection of the herd.  And when we stray from the herd to live life on our own, when we decide we are strong enough and don’t need others or don’t need God to lead us, we lose our direction and our protection of being in the herd.

I like to say that church is like logs burning in a hot fire. When the logs are joined together, they feed off each other in a dancing blaze of glory. But if you pull a log away from the group, the fire inside it will die until that individual log eventually grows cold. Perhaps this is why the Bible encourages us to, “not neglect our meeting together, but continue to encourage one another.” (Hebrews 10:25)

When we go to church – and actively look for it – we get to discover the fire of the Holy Spirit. And if you’re like me, you’ll love when it burns inside you! Today is a great day to make the decision to find a church where the Holy Spirit sets your faith on fire!