What is Wrong with going to Church?

There are days when I don't feel like going, but when I get there I am more refreshed than I could imagine. It pulls me out of the defeats of the day.

Nope - nobody has really spoken to me about it at all - says it all really

I've seen that happen so many times. I don't know if people are too busy, or don't notice...but whenever I run into someone who left a church, that's their story. Not one person called.

So much for "family" , huh ? That may be much better than the whole group coming over and seeing what's up and pushing for one to come back .

Indeed, that is a very reasonable opinion to hold, but it still remains personal, though there is a very high liklihood of agreement on this point. Some may not go to a specific church because the behavior there is aversive to one's spiritual walk -- particular persons who attend may cause involuntary distaste, which opens the door for sin, and church is presumably a place to escape from sin. Others may not go because, like one person I knew, they work six days a week and therefore only have one day entirely free to rest. Still others may not go because the sermon is either ridiculously boring, or contains material one already knows. I am of this latter point: I read voraciously, know my pastor's theology almost, if not better than, he does, and consider the lessons he speaks to be rather bland for my taste, though for others, who don't read like me, the freak, might find this information edifying. One may not go to any church because his place of living does not allow for any expedient reach of a church, or he may not find any church that "clicks" with him.

Ultimately, I find nothing necessarily bad about the Christian who spends the day at home, and this presumably includes sleeping late. Worship is a way of being, and is poorly contained in a single hour once a week. In order to be able to act in such a way that entails the greatest spirit of worship, one must have the greatest physical and psychical advantage possible to be able to prolong and magnify this capacity for worship. And this may include staying home to stay away from agitating persons, or boring sermons; or sleeping late, seeing how sleep is needed for good health.

Moreover, church was much more a perceived necessity at the birth of Christianity, and in places where Christianity is a minority, than it is now, where I am living. The early church was a means of getting away from vehement persecution and finding a growing faith in the presence of others who were fighting the same good fight as oneself. Such is rarely the case now, and here in America and other places that tolerate religious freedom. Hence, there is really no pressing need to go to church unless one finds blessings in the presence of others, or the sermon to be scintillating or fascinating.

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This is not a reason to hold onto the corpse, though!

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We all see dimly.

Ah yes . Good analogy . I will attempt to remember that and say that I wish to throw the *dead* baby out with the bath water .

Or leave it there, burial at sea and all that.

Move out from the water to the desert. Try 40 years wondering, get to know the outcasts and villains. You know, where Jesus is.

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We all see dimly.

'They left because they were a rebellious spirit or wolf in sheeps clothing. They can still be saved if they come back to church, but thats up to them. We sure aint running after someone who is not really saved. Them leaving us showed they had no part in the truth'

Thats what they would say about a poor little lamb that was driven away.

The unconditional love the church offers and brags about is really a very conditional form of false toleration, not love.

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From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas;
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we, in dreams, behold the Hebrides.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says (James 1:22)

We're fighting a losing battle when most of the church is in hiding from a world that Jesus lives in. They all say how you should never be of the world, but happen to forget we are called to be in the world.

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We all see dimly.