There is a barrage of negative reactions when an evangelical pastor urges Christians to be in Church on Sundays. Over the years I have heard that I am legalistic, too Sabbatarian, that I need “to loosen up, after all, people need a break from church once-in-awhile,” and my personal favorite, “Pastor, you’re a spokesman for organized religion.” The one intriguing reality of all these responses is that none, and I say none! have ever offered a biblical rationale for why sporadic, infrequent, or ” I go when I feel like it” bears any resemblance to the Trinitarian faith. Of course, I have offered all sorts of caveats to Church attendance. I have said that there are dozens of reasons for not ordinarily attending church–sickness, baby delivery, recovering from surgery, snow, hail, hurricanes, tornadoes, the apocalypse, etc. But my point has always been that the Christian is ordinarily required–yes, REQUIRED–to be in Church on the Lord’s Day. I have written about this extensively, and even edited a book making this point, but the point remains: God wishes to renew you by calling you into his presence. To assert that a sporting event or some other mundane logic explains away your baptized and holy duty to be with God’s people and exalt his name is to trivialize the death and resurrection of Jesus who came to put together a broken humanity. Tomorrow you will be called by your Creator to worship and bow down before Him. What will you do? Come. Be fed. Be filled. Be whole.
