Why You Need Church

Contrary to how we typically use the word “church,” it is not just a building or a space where people who have something in common congregate and gather together. The Bible uses phrases such as the bride of Christ (Eph 5:25-27; Rev 19:7) and the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-27; Rom 12:4-5) to describe the church. The bride of Christ tells us about the nature of our relationship with Christ. He pursues us, loves us, gives himself up for us, and promises to present us spotless on the last day. We are the object of his covenantal love. The body of Christ describes the diversity and unity in the makeup of the church herself. A body is made up of many parts and no two parts do the same job. Eyes, hands, and feet all serve a different purpose, yet they are all part of the body under one head. These descriptions give us a helpful illustration of our own personal understanding of what the Church is and why we need her.

The age of individualism is at its peak today. Our culture tells us to find our own truth, curate our own feed, and build our own brand. And it's not just shaping the world. It is shaping Christians, often more powerfully than the Bible does. There are countless passages in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, that speak of “one anothering” as a regular rhythm for all Christians. Love one another (John 13:34). Bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2). Encourage one another (1 Thess 5:11). Confess your sins to one another (James 5:16). Stir up one another towards love and good deeds, and don’t neglect meeting together (Heb 10:24-25). These are not suggestions for the “super Christian,” they are commands given to the entire church—which includes you. These are the regular rhythms of a normal Christian life and you can’t “one another” by yourself.

Today, we commonly see more DIY Christianity rather than biblical Christianity. Influential figures on social media have more clout in a Christian’s life than a pastor or leader in the church. Coworkers and friends outside of the church often have louder and more significant voices than the people within the church do. And we take broad and general Christian principles and try to make them fit according to our own desires and wants for ourselves. The result is a faith centered on me—my beliefs, my spiritual journey, my personal formation and my preferences rather than a shared faith, shaped by God’s Word, held in oneness and unity with God’s people. Think about what Jesus says when he teaches his disciples how to pray. He instructs them to begin by saying “Our Father…” Togetherness is essential to the Christian faith because the gospel is not just the good news for you as an individual but the good news that God himself, Jesus Christ, came down from heaven to die in the place of sinners as our perfect substitute. He died for a people. Not just you. And that changes everything we understand about the church.

This is not a new and modern idea. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent’s lie was essentially, “You can decide what is good for yourself.” Full autonomy. Every DIY faith is a quieter echo of that same voice. Who gets to tell me what is true? Who gets to correct me? Who gets to say no? When the answer is always “me,” we have not moved past Genesis 3; we just continue to live our lives with the soundtrack of the fall playing in the background. Scripture teaches that a faithful Christian community is how God shapes our beliefs and anchors our lives to the gospel, both personally and collectively. All of us need the church far more than we realize.

Writing as a parent, I've learned that children are naturally curious and put themselves in danger all the time. It is part of a parent’s job to guide our children and protect them from dangers that they cannot fully understand. My youngest son is one and his favorite activity right now is to jump on our couch like a trampoline and casually walk right off it, landing face first into the ground. After falling on his face once, I thought he learned his lesson, but he continues to try to walk right off after a few jumps. It’s my job and duty to make sure my son doesn’t fall on his face again. So, I grab him before he falls and tell him he can’t just walk off or he’ll get hurt again.

This is one of the reasons why we need church. We are not so different from my one year old son. Our indwelling sin and our pride deceives us and convinces us that we know what’s best for us, especially when it comes to our faith. “Why would I need someone else to tell me how to follow Jesus? Haven’t I been doing fine on my own? I know my own heart!” But the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9). The reality is that just like my one year old son, we can be jumping for joy one minute and fall straight on our face the next. Sometimes (a lot of times) we are deceived and need people around us to speak the truth of our lives.

Our brothers and sisters in the church help us not hurt ourselves. They are the hands that reach out and grab us before we step off the edge. They see what we can’t see in ourselves. But it’s more than just protection from danger. My son doesn’t just need me to stop him from falling to the ground. He needs to know that he’s loved. And that is what the church gives us too: the love and care of Christ as told in the Scriptures that we are in desperate need of and can never supply for ourselves. This is why the Word of God is essential when it comes to the life and rhythms of a local church.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, the apostle Paul writes to his spiritual son and fellow minister, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

When Paul says that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, he is assuming that the Scriptures are being used in the context of community. Yes, piety and personal devotion are important in a Christian’s life. But this is not what Paul is referring to here. Right before verse 16, he reminds Timothy that even from infancy he has known the Holy Scriptures (3:15). How? Because someone taught him. His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice passed the faith down to him (1:5).

Later in chapter 4, Paul exhorts Timothy to preach the Word—again, focusing on an activity that happens in the context of community. Preaching assumes listeners. It assumes a gathered church. God’s Word is handed down in community, heard in community, preached in community, and applied in community. We, as God’s people, sit under the faithful preaching of the Word together, week in and week out, and then we work it out and apply it in our lives together.

The demands and the distractions in life are very real. Work demands, kids’ practices and recitals, bills, and social commitments all demand a payment of our attention and easily distract us, taking away our focus from the things that we are called to prioritize most—the worship of God and the mission of God. The worship of God happens within the church and the mission of God happens through the church. Jesus didn’t just save individuals and send them off to figure out life on their own. He formed a people to gather around his Word and his table, and then he sent them out into the world to advance his gospel. So when we drift from the church, in a sense, we drift away from Christ himself and lose our affections toward God because they are captured by something else. We lose a sense of purpose because now we find a seemingly greater purpose in our careers, our family, and our friends. What has been demanding your attention lately and what has it been costing you?

At the end of Acts 2, we see a vivid picture of the early church. The early Christians did not center their lives on the church; rather, their lives were centered on Christ and the gospel, and as a result, their lives embodied what it meant to be the church. The call and command of Scripture is not to spend all our time throughout the week with church people doing church things, but to live Christ-focused, missionally bent lives in close proximity to one another, reaching the world in a compelling and attractive way. So, how then shall we live?

First, commit and participate, don’t just attend. There’s a difference between being a visitor at church and belonging to one. Don’t get me wrong—we welcome everyone to come and check out our church, learn, ask questions, and get to know our people. But if you’ve been floating around our community without making a commitment to it and attending worship at your own convenience, not only will your experience at church be limited, but you are also limiting the possibility of experiencing true gospel renewal in your life—the new life that only Jesus Christ can give you. Be committed and consistent in the life of our church. Take the step towards church membership. Tell a leader in the church that you want to commit yourself more deeply in the community. A body can’t care for a part that won’t stay attached.

Second, put in place the right voices in your life. The Bible says that Christians are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for Christ’s own possession (1 Pet 2:9). That means every Christian has a priestly calling and has the qualities to speak rightly, truthfully, and transformatively to one another, grounding each other in Christ and his finished work on the cross. These are the voices that we need more than we realize. Take inventory of who are the most shaping influences in your life today. How many people on that list are actually people in your church community who are wise and leading you to love Jesus more than you did yesterday? We need to give the right voices access in our lives and we need to listen to them with humility and faithfulness.

Third, live out one anothering regularly and personally in your life. Encourage, serve, pray for, bear burdens, confess your sins, and forgive one another, not just as a suggestion but as a necessity. They are the normal, everyday rhythms of life in the body of Christ. Notice where each one comes from. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We bear burdens because Christ bore ours. We serve because Jesus came down to earth not to be served but to serve. One anothering is how we live out the gospel in simple but transformative ways.

Fourth, guard the gathering. Look at your calendar and treat Sunday worship as a fixed point and not as an inconvenience to your busy schedule. Let all the demands in your life be structured by Christ, the one who demands our life because he gave up his own for us. Now, let’s be clear. This isn’t about earning God’s favor through our worship attendance. God isn’t keeping a punch card and blessing us on the basis of our attendance in worship. But prioritizing worship is about responding to the treasure and gift of grace that has been given to us through the gospel with praise, gratitude, and adoration that every Christian is called to.

Finally, partner with one another for the mission of Christ. Open your home and share a meal with one another, but don’t let it stop there. Speak truthfully and rightly to one another. Say everything that the other person needs to hear. Address sin, offer yourself as a living sacrifice, live generously, care for one another, seek the peace and prosperity of this great city, share the hope that is found in you, care for the marginalized, help the weak, and encourage the downcast. Live life with great intentions and by faith, as those who truly believe that God himself humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant and emptied himself by dying a sinner’s death on the cross for your sake.

If you read these applications and feel overwhelmed, know this: the church does not begin with your commitment; it begins with Christ’s. The church is the bride of Christ and the Bridegroom is coming back for his bride. She did not clean herself up to earn his love. He loved her and gave himself up for her to make her holy and present her to himself without stain or wrinkle. Every time ordinary people—messy but forgiven sinners—gather and center themselves around his Word, it is a sign filled with reminders that God keeps his promises to his people.

You don’t need the church to earn salvation; only Christ can accomplish that. You need the church because Christ has already accomplished that for you. He’s already finished the work that we could never do for ourselves. He was alone on the cross so that we would never have to live life alone again.