What’s in it for me?
I often ask skeptics, agnostics and apathetics why they don’t
attend church. Beyond the most common
and obvious answers, such as lack of belief in God in general or Christianity specifically,
or labeling church-goers as hypocrites because of the bad behavior of some,
there are some other more basic reasons.
An agnostic named Mike and I talked about this recently, and we thought
maybe technology had usurped some of the roles that Church has filled.
We surmised that it might be due to a lack of urgency about eternity. Technology has lowered mortality rates and
raised life expectancies to the point that people feel reasonably assured of a
long life and feel unconcerned about death.
“Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”, has turned into “for we
may never die”.
We also surmised that the sense of community and belonging
that a church congregation provided in past generations has also been usurped
by technology, as cars and smart phones help bring people together around other
interests, and help organize people around social causes that were once only
organized by churches.
Mike felt like, as the grandson of devout Catholics back in
Poland, his generation is the first of many to do without church and organized religion. But I asked him “Might there be another
reason to go to church other than eternal security and a sense of community?”
He couldn’t think of any.
“What about God Himself?” I asked.
As created beings, wouldn’t it make sense for us to take
some time to honor our Creator? What if
we were to take time each week just to honor our God with corporate worship? Many places in scripture, including Psalm 95,
tell us to worship God simply because He is worthy:
“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and
song.
For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong
to him.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our
Maker;
for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under
his care.”
In a world where churches compete with the world for our attention,
distracting us with entertaining music and coffee bars and animated sermons,
let’s return in spirit and in truth to the simple worship of our Creator, because
He is worthy.
PS – Mike graciously allowed me to record our conversation,
which can be seen in its entirety HERE
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