[If you're going to run off without reading this post because it's too long, I understand. I use lots of words to think, but know lots of people are frustrated by such excessiveness. If that's you, I would be really grateful if you'd skip over the wordy part of the post and consider answering the bolded questions at the end, before you leave. Thanks 
]
I’ve been thinking a lot about church during the past year. Due to a set of unexpected circumstances, I found myself searching for a church to attend at a time when I wanted desperately to be settled. With a combination of grief, my introverted tendency to avoid new groups of people and a critical attitude, the process was pretty rough and lengthy. Right before Christmas, a lot of things came together. I felt like my grief came to the surface in a clearer way, and God began to touch and chip off the arrogant attitudes in such an amazing and tender way. It’s hard to describe how tangible that process was and what a relief it was to be able to let go of some of the attitudes I’d been holding onto, but not liking.
I’ve been learning a lot in the process, thanks in great part to many of you who read this blog and others whose blogs I read. (I’m not going to try to locate and link back to all the specific blogs, because there are too many over quite a period of time. I’m just linking to the home pages of many of the bloggers who have influenced my life as I work through my thinking on church. If you want to know more about a specific author or post I refer to, though, email me and I’ll send you the link(s).)
Codepoke’s posts on blooming where you are planted and getting involved in a church near ones house prompted me to visit a nearby church I had otherwise overlooked. That is the church I ended up deciding to settle into and be a part of. Lingamish continues to keep me on my toes with regards to thinking about worship and challenging some of my expectations. The honest writings at Beyond Words have given me a model for critical thinking about church while maintaining a heart of humility and life of servanthood. John at Ancient Hebrew Poetry got me thinking with some of his posts as he has written about a wedding and a funeral he preached, has shared bits and pieces about the churches he and his wife pastor, as well as thoughts on his aunt’s active involvement in her church. Phil’s own thoughts at Pensees as well as a quote he shared by Kierkegaard have me grappling with the topic from another angle. And Thainamu has shared some about her church and the life group she is a part of, which helped me think about my own expectations. How they do things fit with a lot of my expectations, even though if you’d have asked me what the ideal small group looked like, I couldn’t have come up with a description very easily.
And then Scott Gray of A Lectionary Beyond Belief wrote and asked me some questions, which motivated me to try harder to articulate some of these vague thoughts and feelings.
Articulating stuff is hard for me. People don’t think it is, because I am so verbose. But the verboseness is part of the struggle to actually be able to narrow down and communicate what’s going on inside of me on a given topic. I suppose I unconsciously think that if I use enough words, I’ll eventually be able to accurately get out what is on my heart and mind. But I’m rarely satisfied with the end result, and I think sometimes I lose the point in all of the words. Anyway, Scott’s questions helped. As a brainstormer and networker, my thinking was all over the map, so to speak. But with specific questions, I was able, a little bit, to start to narrow down some of my thinking. Instead of sharing my partially formed answers here and now, though, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the topic.
I want to ask you one of Scott’s questions with a couple of my own. I’m thinking of this as a survey. For those of you who read blogs, but don’t comment because you don’t think you have anything to contribute to the conversation, actually you do on this post! Everybody has a contribution to make to a survey. This is an open ended survey about what you do and why you do it. If you do it (go to church), you’ve got something to add (and if you don’t do it, your reasons for that would contribute a helpful perspective as well!)
I’m really curious about why people go to church and what they expect when they do. There are no right or wrong answers, and I’m not planning on responding to the comments in the thread itself. My hope is that it truly will be a collection of responses that will paint a picture for me and help me sort out, clarify and articulate my own thoughts. I may further the discussion in another post, but here I’d like to collect your reasons without adding my 2 cents to them.
If you go to church, there are reasons you do, and there are expectations you have for that. I’m wanting to learn more about the scope and variety of those reasons and expectations.
Here’s the original question I was asked:
What do you think the purpose of church services is in ones spiritual and faith community life?
Here are two other questions to help you think through it. Feel free to respond to any or all of them.
What do you hope/expect to get out of going to church?
What do you hope/expect to contribute by going to church? (i.e. what part do you believe the individual believer has in the bigger purpose of church services?)
I often let a post sit overnight, but I know it will be quite a while before I have time again, so I’ll just snap these off.
> What do you think the purpose of church services is in ones spiritual and faith community life?
Well, I think it tries to do a little more than it should these days. It should be the place where the church gets a shared vision. For example, in the main service, a vision of Christ should be presented that kind of unifies everyone’s efforts in regular life for the week. If we are shown Christ as sufficient for our needs, we will go to life-group, prayer meeting, etc with that vision on all our minds.
> What do you hope/expect to get out of going to church?
The feeling that I am not alone in Christ in the world, that others are on the same journey, suffering the same things, able to support in time of need. Especially, I expect to receive opportunity to minister in some way, and truly feel like I’m connected when others receive what I offer.
> What do you hope/expect to contribute by going to church? (i.e. what part do you believe the individual believer has in the bigger purpose of church services?)
I really vote for a church with small goals and intents based upon the massive work of an infinitely loving God. It’s hard for me to live or even just to remember that, because I’m so given to a fleshly ostentation, but that’s to where I’m trying to grow.
As the years have gone by, I think I’ve become less particular in what I look for in a church. Maybe that just comes from mellowing out as one gets older? Or maybe it is because when our kids got to be teenagers it became obvious that we all wanted something different in a church–my husband wanted a high service with great organ music and intellectual preaching, my kids wanted a youth group that was engaging and challenging, and I just wanted to connect with some other believers. For a minute it was tempting to go our separate ways, but we didn’t do that. Instead, we just decided to do what was best for our kids, and be happy there.
We decided we can be happy just about anywhere. After all, didn’t we do that while we were living in a different culture? Same principle applies here.
I do have a list of things that would make a perfect church, but then I wouldn’t be able to attend, because if I did, it would no longer be perfect.
“What do you think the purpose of church services is in ones spiritual and faith community life?”
****I believe the primary purpose of church services is to come together as a community of believers, first and foremost, to worship God. But the process of worship service in the community setting should start before we walk into the building. It isn’t that people should leave their pains, hurts, agonies, and whatever at the door, but the mature Christian should understand that the purpose for coming isn’t with a focus to have those pains and hurts taken care of in the service or have specific answers given to their needs in any particular service, but to enter the sancuary with purpose number one–worship God.
I believe one of God’s greatest blessing to His children, come from His children coming to him in their pain or joy and giving him praise and honor. The natural results of praise, worship, and thanksgiving is that in some mysterious way He deals with and cares for the hurts and pain that we bring in to the worship service.
When one of God’s children enters the sanctuary in pain, but sets aside their pain for worship, God just can’t help but react with compassion.
I think too many people go to church looking for something instead of giving something–worship and praise.
Oh, I know there is much more that can be said about the purpose of church services–but I believe if we approach it from what I have described as the number one reason, all else will fall into place.
“What do you hope/expect to get out of going to church?”
****Spiritual growth–Joy [notice I didn't say happiness]–peace [notice I didn't say freedom from trials and tribulations].
“What do you hope/expect to contribute by going to church? (i.e. what part do you believe the individual believer has in the bigger purpose of church services?)”
****As a pastor I hope to contribute to the growing relationship between the person in the pew and God. I believe the primary way that happens is by teaching them to worship first, and when they do that, God will contribute to them what they need and often desire. And then, I hope that they are learning that worship does NOT begin and end in the church service, but it continues as we walk out the doors into the World. For it is in the World that we really become the “Salt and Light” of the World.
I believe that some individuals have a part to play in the church service that is very visual. However, in reality, the visible who may be on the plateform are no more important than those in the pews.
Good questions. So much more could be said. But enough of my rambling.
MAKE IT a great week.
fishon
Hi, The purposes of church services are the same for all of life’s activities – To bring us closer to God. If I remember that is the reason Jesus came. When we loose track of that everything becomes more difficult, more confused. If the activities do not accomplish that we are counselled to avoid them.
I have not read the other comments so if someone has mentioned what I wrote just consider my comment an amen..
Your friend, Bill
fishon, I wish I had time to say more in response to your thoughts. But since I don’t, I’ll just affirm your statement that “worship does NOT begin and end in the church service,” but then strongly disagree with your main point about worship.
As for your questions, Eclexia, I have to basically shrug my shoulders. You’ve been getting acquainted with some of my criticisms of the church (which I will write more systematically at some point, by the way) and these leave me pretty confused about the Church as we know it. In Acts, the believers were continually devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer; they had everything in common; they sold their property and shared with those in need; and they took their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. That fits with following Christ. But what can we say for the places we go on Sunday morning? Church seems so far from the ideal of following Christ, and so detached from the rest of life. I love a lot of the things codepoke has said which blow right past the pretence of Sunday morning and get to the truly Christian matters of love and service. But these good things seems largely independent of the “worship service,” if not partly in spite of it.
The huge faults I see disturb me in themselves, and also taint the other aspects of Church that would otherwise be good. When I see something better – for example, a sermon which actually proclaims the gospel without pulling any punches – I am overjoyed. But even this is more of a relief to me than an exhortation or encouragement. Church should call and equip us to follow Christ; it should challenge us. But I instead find myself always wanting to challenge the Church. It is so seldom that I hear a sermon challenge me; it is almost weekly that I hear a sermon frustrate me by soft-pedaling the gospel and telling half-truths.
So I keep going partly out of the desire for support and fellowship, however shallow it often is. And I hold out hope for the exceedingly rare exhortation or challenge. I also hope to serve, but in one of the main ways it seems I am called to serve the Church – challenging it – I am very unsure of when and how to speak up. And honestly, I go largely out of obligation and duty.
I also posted some more of my thoughts here. Thanks a lot for getting us all thinking and talking, Eclexia.
I’m not sure what happened to the first link, on “strongly disagree,” but it is supposed to be to http://philsmokepensees.blogspot.com/2008/01/015-church-services.html
Great questions, Eclexia. I think the purpose of church is to gather us together so the presence of God dwells in the midst of his people. It’s for communal worship with the Trinity, it’s for building us up and learning from and submitting to each other.
The Christian life is both overwhelmingly communal and intensely personal, to borrow a phrase from Greg Laughery.
Gathering together is the antecdote for private, pietistic faith.
Worship doesn’t end when the assembly is over, but the powerful, communal aspect of it does.
I long for church that realizez the importance of being a body formed in Christ instead formating the event for a room full of individuals seeking their private experience of God.
That link didn’t go to the right place.
Try this
Hi again,
Just read a blog posted 1/21 entitled Olives, Wineskins, White Bread and Jesus at http://www.reallivepreacher.com
about church services.
[...] here’s the first one, in the form of a question inspired by two members of my blogroll, Eclexia and Phil [...]
Beyond Words:
> Gathering together is the antidote for private, pietistic faith.
I really like this.
I think about the old testament, and how imperfect things were, yet God would have been pleased had the people just done what they could imperfectly. Private pietism is not an answer.
Here is one of the questions you asked us to consider….
What do you hope/expect to get out of going to church?
I used to beat myself up because I felt 95% of the time “church” was boring. There must be something wrong with my heart.
A W Tozer talks about the children coming to the table expectantly hoping to get fed..then walking away hungry. At this point as a Christian, I am not interested in going to weekly “meetings” if there isn’t some substancial spiritual feeding going on and if there isn’t a portion of the time intentionally set aside for Christians to encourage one another (in all the various ways that entailss..comfort, encourage, challenge, instruct,pray for, serve,etc).
At one point my wife raised this almost heritical question…”looking back over our lives, where did we feel we were the most encouraged and built up as Christians?..where did we feel we connected with God most powerfully? (..hummm…when I stopped to answer that honestly, it was either at some type of retreat, or a less structured time such as at a “care group” (small group,etc)…so why in the world were we going to 3 or 4 meetings a week where this was not happening?……well, because that’s what faithful Christians in 20th (now the 21st century) do right? We were told that it’s not about us…it’s about God…worshiping God..that sound so spiritual and I think it’s a crock. Some day, each of us will have to stand before God and answer for how we lived our lives as Christians….
I attend one relatively short house church meeting at this point in my life and I am 10 times more fruitful and spiritually vibrant than I ever was when we went 4 times a week. when we were involved in a traditional Church I was not just going w/ the attitude “entertain me” or “feed me”…heck I was one of the teachers.
Wrapping it up..what do I expect out of going to church?
Encouragement, a sense of connecting..both with God and my fellow believers. feel free to disagree w/ me…I don’t mean to disrespect any of you reading this if you see things differently, I know the verses, have read the books and that’s all there is to it.
I am looking for a place to worship, find community, and to be reoriented away from my “usual” thought life and towards what it means to radically live out a life submitted to God. I look for a place where I can both come as I am with all of my flaws and failings and also be challenged in genuine love to move beyond myself.
Phil,
I sure wish you had the time to tell me what you disagreed with me about in my main point about worship. To bad!
I certainly agree with what you wrote in post #5 after you said you disagreed with me.
Oh well, I guess I will never know where I have gone wrong.
fishon
Hey Fishon, I think Phil might have meant that link he left on post #6 to be a way to give some explanation of the ways he disagrees. Looks like a post he wrote about church services (his views on it), so maybe give that a try.
Eclexia, it’s taken me a few days to think on this survey because, honestly, my participation in church life right now is pretty low. I haven’t assimilated too well into the life of the church that Kirk’s been attending for a long time, so that’s been difficult. What I think about church from how I lived it and experienced it two years ago is very different than what I live now.
That said, here are some thoughts.
1) Purposes of church services: I agree with a lot of what has been said, that church is a place for people to come and worship God, to have their thoughts directed upward, to be in corporate communion before God. I can’t help but think of how many people gather together for church every week, in all the churches across the globe. Each one is walking a unique path, sitting in a unique place, different from their neighbor. Yet we all come together united in our belief in Jesus Christ and His teachings.
Acknowledging that, I don’t think it is possible for a teaching pastor to try to meet each person where they are with a sermon. Or maybe if he tries, it should be done with sympathy and acknowledgement of different places on the spectrum that different people could be.
For instance, a sermon on greater sacrifice and service? Isn’t going to be what someone needs to hear if God is helping them undo their perfectionism and performing tendencies, if they have lived with a lot of sacrifice and service their whole life because they thought that was what helped them get to God and gain salvation. What if they are on an intentional path to learn grace? What if that means NOT DOING for a little while, just to receive grace and love from God that is not based on doing something? Well, that sermon that says all believers need to serve and sacrifice is just not gonna be plain helpful. Not that the principle of service and sacrifice in the Christian life isn’t true, but it’s just not necessarily what every person is walking in the reality of their life in God at that point.
That was a really long tangent, but I meant it to illuminate my view on teaching in church. The teaching pastor takes on a lot of weight and responsibility in trying to speak to all the people sitting in that church on that Sunday. I think some humility and appreciation for each person’s unique story is important.
2) Hope/expect to get: Sound teaching. Unity of the body. Worshipful intent. Compassion. Demonstration of the true love and heart of Christ. A willingness to be real. An understanding that the Christian life is not one perfectly lived but lived in grace. Help in understanding what that even means.
3) Hope/expect to give: I would expect to give love to the Body in the area of my giftedness, for the building up of the community in the ways God has given me to do. I would also expect to be real. I would expect to participate in life-affirming, compassionate community life.
OK, I’m going to answer this before I read anything else…
* What do you think the purpose of church services is in ones spiritual and faith community life?
- The church service itself does little for my spiritual life. It’s good to praise God as part of a community but that’s about it.
* What do you hope/expect to get out of going to church?
- Talking with friends, broadening my Christian community, to praise God with others – most of this I get outside of the service, usually over coffee.
* What do you hope/expect to contribute by going to church? (i.e. what part do you believe the individual believer has in the bigger purpose of church services?)
- Loving others. – I don’t actually believe that I can do this in a church service, it’s something that happens outside of that, but by going I have the opportunity to meet people and be in a community with them.
Yes, I am pretty much completely disillusioned with the whole service part of church.
I don’t go to church, I am church, I live church, when it is just me and the Lord and when it is me and other Christians and the Lord, whether it is in the church building (which I visit very regularly for formal and informal events) or elsewhere.
Perhaps I am saying the same as Phil, in his original comment #5 and the post he linked to.
I need to be fed and have a chance to feed others. In my church, I have a time when I am absolutely fed – It is in Sunday school. The teacher is great. He really teaches the meat and guts of the Bible but also tells us practically how to apply it. On Wednesday nights we have a fellowship meal where I get to “hang out” with other Christians and have a great time just relaxing and enjoying their company. A free meal helps too
Some weeknights, my husband goes and plays basketball at church with the guys. It’s a great male bonding time with other believers.
To me church feeds me spiritually. But more importantly, it connects me with other believers to fellowship with.
Did you get my last comment? I don’t know if longer comments require moderation, or if I did something wrong on my end, or what.
Phil,
I always find that frustrating. I’ve gotten to where I copy and paste into my word processor comments I’ve put a lot of thought into, so that I still have them if they don’t go through. It’s so much work to put the thoughts down and is maddening and disheartening when those words just disappear.
I only received the comments that you see here. If a comment has two links, it seems to require moderation. But, none of your comments have come through requiring moderation. I’m sorry if your comment is now lost in cyberspace
Thanks to all of you for your thoughts. As I said in the post, I’m not responding individually to your comments on this particular thread, because I want your perspectives to stand as just that. I am thankful to each of you for sharing your thoughts. I have found it be helpful.
Ah, ok. Well luckily, I did as you do, and I saved it. So here it is, with links unlinked:
fishon,
I’m sorry I didn’t respond at greater length before. And also, I’m sorry if I read things into your comment which you did not mean. I may certainly have done that. But what I disagreed with was what I understood by your statements that “the primary purpose of church services is to come together as a community of believers, first and foremost, to worship God,” we should “enter the sancuary with purpose number one–worship God,” “if we approach [church services] from what I have described as the number one reason, all else will fall into place,” and “the primary way [you contribute to the growing relationship between a churchgoer and God] is by teaching them to worship first.”
Worship is obviously about much more than the things that happen Sunday mornings; it’s about an entire life lived following Christ. And in absence of that entire life, then our explicitly worshipful acts become a mockery, and an offense to God. So I would say that we should not gather in church primarily to worship Him during that service, but to learn how to truly worship Him; not primarily to sing and pray to Him there in church, but to learn how to love and obey Him in all of life. The church service should be focused upward on God and outward on all of life – not inward on itself as a worshipful experience. And I would say that rather than explicitly worshipful activities causing all else to fall into place, that when all else is moving towards God then praise and worship will fall into place, and will spring up with thankfulness.
I’m guessing that you’ll agree with much or all of what I’ve said here. But I think the things you’ve said about worship express something very contrary to what I’ve said, and do foster a skewed view of the Christian life. At the very least, they give that impression to others, and fail to communicate the qualifications and caveats you yourself may have in the back of your mind as you say those things.
I’d love to continue this dialogue, and please let me know if I’ve been unclear or incomplete. And if you respond here, please also email me (at philsmoke at gmail dot com) or leave a message on my blog, which you’ll find by clicking on my name at the top of this comment. Thank you.
eclexia–
i don’t know if you’re still thinking about this issue, but you might find this post interesting:
http://nothing-new-under-the-sun.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-is-church.html
scott
Thanks, Scott. You know what, I’ve got to remember that just because I THINK an answer, doesn’t mean that the person I’ve answered actually got to hear the answer
Yes, I am still thinking about this issue, and I read, with interest and appreciation, the link (and comment dialogue) you included here. Thank you for that. It was very good, and I do continue to process and think about this topic, and appreciate any thoughts you and others have, even though I haven’t sorted it out into words or any great conclusion for myself.