It's all about relationship

After 35 years serving as a pastor, I have observed a great deal about why people attend church. These observations are drawn from what people have told me about their own church-going and non-church-going. Among people’s reasons for going to church:

many attend church when their children are young, hoping it will help form a moral foundation; some attend church not as an act of faith but in support of an institution they regard as beneficial to society; some attend church as a sort of transactional exercise, hoping to gain God’s favor; some attend church for companionship; some attend church in order to sing in the choir; some attend church as part of their recovery from addiction; and many attend church because they believe that Jesus is the Christ of God.

I have found it meaningful, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes aggravating, to serve as pastor to all these groups of people. As I have said many times, I understand the Christian faith to be, boiled down to its essentials, about relationship. We have been created for relationship, and we have been given latitude to struggle with making connection with one another. On one hand, there is the possibility of loving, intimate relationship, aligning with the so-called “Law of Love” Jesus emphasized — love God, love neighbor. On the other hand, there are those inescapable impulses that mitigate against loving, intimate relationship: fear, egotism, greed, jealousy, pride. All of us can aspire to the former; none of us can avoid the latter.

In my opinion, all the groups I list above have equal opportunity to build loving, intimate relationships with God and neighbor. However, when you read down that list you can see how church attendance is varyingly a consistent part of exercising that opportunity.

Those who attend for their children’s sake almost always stop when the children reach their teens.

Those who attend as a civic exercise (like voting or paying taxes) seldom feel relationship with God.

Those who seek God’s favor are usually put off by the church’s teaching about sin, bristling at the notion they are “bad”.

Those who seek companionship often leave either because they find a partner or because they do not.

Choir members…well, they are very loyal and find meaningful relationship regardless of their views on God and Jesus.

Those who are on a journey of recovery often stay because church connects them with their higher power.

And those with a strong faith in Jesus stay or go largely based on theological considerations (a particular church being too liberal or too conservative).

It has always been my goal to emphasize church as the body of Christ, through which we have relationship with God and people. From that, I have also emphasized what I believe are the basic functions of living as a disciple of Jesus: Bible study, worship/prayer, and service.

 This seems especially important to me in these days when church going is measurably diminishing and authoritarian governance is measurably rising. Now, especially, we need Emmanuel, “God with Us”. Now, especially, we need to take seriously the reality of sin as a power that unleashes hatred, enmity, violence, and injustice. Now, perhaps most of all, we need for our consciousness to be anchored in a stronger foundation than rationalism and liberal optimism. Now, we need God.

In Christ,

Lee