Why Go To Church?

Sam Hamstra | Nov 23, 2009

Many people want God but aren't so sure - or are real sure - that they don't want the local church. That's understandable. Carlo Caretto, the great Italian spiritual writer, spoke for many of us when he wrote these words: "How much I must criticize you, my church and yet how much I love you. How you have made me to suffer and yet how much I owe you. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand holiness." (I Sought and I Found, 135).

There are moments in our spiritual journey when we experience that which Caretto describes. In response, we may give up on the local church and opt for a detached form of Christianity. We may opt, for example, for a super-market form of the faith whereby we shop here and there to receive spiritual nourishment from a number of sources. We will receive teaching from a book and preaching from a person on the television. We will get our music from the radio and a little bit more from our CD's. We will find Christian fellowship with like-minded individuals who share a passion for a particular mission field or a certain form of service. We will find just about everything we think we need to grow into the likeness of Christ without the politics and problems associated with the Body of Christ.

All that begs the question, "Why go to church?" What do you tell your friends or your children who do not go but wonder why you do? Why might you consider going if you are not going? Ronald Rolheiser raises those questions in his book The Holy Longing: The Search for Christian Spirituality (New York:Doubleday, 1999). Here is his comprehensive ninefold response. Perhaps it will speak to you, as it did to me:

  1. Because, as social creatures, it is not good to be alone;
  2. To take my rightful place humbly within the family of humanity (and so give up elitism);
  3. Because God calls me there;
  4. To dispel my fantasies about myself for, in the church, we will be confronted where we most need challenge; 
  5. Because 10,000 saints have told me so;
  6. To help others carry their struggles and to have them help me carry mine;
  7. To dream with others (and, together with them, make a difference in the world);
  8. To practice for heaven where we will gather for worship with people from every tribe and nation; and
  9. For the pure joy it... because it is heaven.
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