Thoughts on Church

There was something I couldn’t understand for a long time; it was that some people didn’t like to go to church. For me, even when I was young I enjoyed going to church, and now in my life as a young adult it is one of the major highlights of my week. I love my church. I love the people and the fellowship. I love worshipping my God. I love learning more about how to serve the God I love. I mean what is not to enjoy, does any of that sound boring to you? I will admit that sometimes I nod off for a few seconds during a sermon but it is not because I don’t want to listen; It’s because I’m not very good at going to bed and getting enough sleep. I think one of the problems with many churches is that they don’t every get to the really meat. They like to stay in the simple stuff, just have spiritual milk; it’s not possible to grow to the fullness of our spiritual strength on just milk. As Paul says, we have to have solid food. We need to hear about, consider, and wrestle with the deep and tough issues of our faith. We need a deep faith that permeates everything in our life. Our faith should not be limited to Sunday mornings and when we are with certain friends, it should be who we are all the time; it must be our core. I think a reason that many people don’t like church is because their home church is not challenging them. It’s just a surface level faith, and there isn’t a reason to go to a church like that.
Have you ever noticed how emotions are contagious? Say you’re feeling a bit down and you start hanging out with your friend who is really happy, you’ll probably smiling yourself by the time you two part ways. In addition, hanging around depressed people gets depressing… It’s just the way God wired us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Funerals and weddings are two examples of when we do that. I think that our love for God should be contagious. It should just spill out of us, and sweep other people along. You can think of it as either a rushing river or a roaring fire. Either way if you get close enough it will change you. The things in the path will not be the same after the affect. It should be the same with the Gospel in a person’s life, especially our own life. If we aren’t changed then we probably haven’t been swept away by the flood or burning for the Lord.
Going to church should be like giving a fire oxygen and fuel; it should burn hotter and brighter. When you go to church you need real fuel, sometimes I think church just want to throw a little lighter fluid on the fire; it might flare up for a little bit but it dies down really quick. We need the solid stuff if the fire is going to last. When you build a fire, you may start with small stuff and you may put some lighter fluid on to help it start, but if you want a fire to continue to burn, you have to put in a few logs.


I didn't put verses in here although I sort of referenced a couple. I feel like my post has kind of rambled, but I guess the idea I hope I communicated is that we should be excited about going to church and church should build us up so that we stay strong.