Joe Allotta

There are lots of reasons to not go to church, but here are the Top 10 reasons why you should suck-it up and go anyway.

10) It Could Change the Way You Feel

If you don’t go this time, what makes you think you’ll want to go next week. You never know, something might be done or said that changes the way you are feeling about church. If you do nothing different, more than likely you won’t ever end up feeling any different.

9) You Might Find Someone That Needs Your Help

When you go to church to be “ministered to”, that’s a 50-50 proposition at best. When you go to be a minister than you are almost guaranteed to find someone who needs encouragement, assistance, motivation, or the like.

8) Go Fill in For Someone Working that Sunday

Don’t feel like going to church? No problem. Let those working in Nursery or running sound for the children’s ministry or on Parking Lot Patrol know that you are willing to cover for them this week. I’m sure they’d love a week off serving to get to worship with their family.

7) Because People Actually Encourage Us to Live More Godly Lives

Depending on your personality, some see others talk about praying and reading their bibles and get the push they need to start doing it themselves; others see people not nearly as godly as them doing more than them (tongue in cheek), and so they decide to kick it up a notch.

6) Your Spiritual Gifting Will Be Missed

You were designed to build-up the body of Christ. You have no idea how you might be needed on a particular Sunday. As Optimus Prime said, “Greatness rarely calls upon us in a moment of our choosing.”

5) Church is your Family

Of course we don’t always want to spend time with our family, but we do it anyway because they’re family. You get together every Sunday morning, just like the crew from the Fast and the Furious. You always spend time with family. Period.

 

4) God Has Lots More Ways to Speak to You

God can get your attention in lots of ways. Most of them are pretty painful. One of the least painful ways is by getting up and going to church. There’s worship through song which might have a lyric that speaks to you, there might be a time of prayer where God brings something to your remembrance, the pastor could preach something out of the Word that truly teaches you something new, or God could convict you during the invitation or the Lords’ Supper or the like.

3) Maybe You Need to Go to a Church You Do Want to Go to

I don’t like this option, but it is an option. If you are dreading going to church all the time, maybe you need to go to a church you are excited to go to. Honestly, the same feeling might creep back and the answer can’t be to just keep hopping churches every time you feel like it. But every once in a while (after lots of prayer), the answer might be to just try somewhere else.

2) Church Actually De-stresses Us

Scientifically it’s because being around people releases endorphins, and spiritually it’s because how God designed us. Being more yielded to the Holy Spirit allows for more access to God’s love, joy, peace, patience, and the like.

1) God Wants You to

Hebrews 10:25 all day.

In all seriousness, we have started becoming “consumers” of church. Every person has something different they are looking for in their church. When their expectations aren’t fully met, they get disenchanted. This consumer mentality leads to a very self-centered life as opposed to a Christ-centered one. So many expressions of Christianity are turning from Bible-prescribed to personal-preference. Christians stay at home because they believe their faith is personal and they say they can do everything at home that they could do at church. (In reality they don’t.) But anyone who was truly worshipping God, reading His Word, and praying sincerely, would be compelled to go to church and live-out what they were learning with their fellow believers. However, do not take any of this list to mean that going to “church” means some sort of brick and mortar building with a big cross on there somewhere. Assembling together might take place in a park or a living room. It might take place on a Sunday morning or a Tuesday evening. It could have a pulpit, guitar, and offering baskets; or it could reject all three. So go to church this week, even if it doesn’t look like what your grandparents would call a church; just make sure God would call it a church ;)

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