Why We Need the Church

It’s no secret that when you become a believer in Christ that you need other believers to hold you accountable in your walk with Him. Sometimes you need just a few close people for accountability, but you also need the church for every part of life.

Now to some of you, this may seem like common knowledge. You’re thinking, “Well duh! Why wouldn’t you go to church?” But something that’s sadly becoming increasingly more popular is online churches. Churches that you can log online to attend and then just go about your week and check it off the list. There’s no community, no accountability, no raw sense of worship that comes from attending and serving the church each week.

We need the church as weekly reminders that this life is not about us. We need to go on Sunday mornings, chaotic as they might be, and sit down and listen to God’s word surrounded by other people like you and me. We need to physically be beside other believers and worship our risen King and be smacked in the face and punched in the gut with the reality that it’s not all about us. It’s about Christ.

We need the church because we need to see other imperfect people praising a perfect God. We need to see people with lives different than ours worshipping the God of all creation that looks at us all the same. As holy, redeemed, loved and in desperate need of Him.

We need the church because life is hard sometimes. There are moments when there’s nothing you can do but cry. And sometimes those tears don’t come until you hear a sermon that seems like it was made for you (especially when it hurts) and then the invitation song gets you out of nowhere and the tears flow freely. And when we can’t hold it together, the church is there to wrap her arms around us and be the comfort that we didn’t know we needed.

We need the church and it’s different ministries to bring about Godly friendships. We need Godly friends to remind us of the truth of the gospel in every season of life. We need Godly friends to remind us that Jesus is better no matter what we’re feeling right now. We need Godly friendships to remind us of who we are in Him when we can’t see it anymore. We need the church for every relationship it builds: relationships with His people and a deeper relationship with Him.

I know it’s late. I know that I, like many of you, are on the brink of exhaustion. But whether you’re reading this as you’re winding down for the night or you don’t read this until sometime tomorrow, you need the church, friend. You need a body of believers that is proclaiming Christ each and every Sunday. You need to be there.

Find a church. Get involved in the church. Love the church. Love the people in the church. Serve the church. Praise Christ in all things. Remember that Jesus is better.