It is the kind of question your child asks one Sunday morning. You’re still groggy with sleep, trying to get them into their Sunday best before racing to arrive at church before the service starts. “Why do we go to church?”
Why do we go to church?
The question makes you realise that, actually, you have never really thought systematically about it. You just know it is something Christians are meant to do. Your instinct is right. But it is always better to have informed reasons that support whatever we do as Christians. This essay offers nine answers—it could be twenty, but let’s not get carried away— which you could give whenever the question comes up. Now some of these activities can be practised at home and in other events outside of Sunday worship, but I believe that there is a richness that comes with doing them together, with other believers.
1. God Commands Us to Gather
If you need only one reason, this is it. We must go to church because God commands it. Congregational worship is a positive commandment from God to all believers. “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,” writes one first century pastor, by “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
We must go to church because God commands it.
Since the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, Christians have gathered to proclaim this truth and to wait for his return. We gather together both in hope and to encourage one another. God commands this. We need to go to church.
2. God Is Worthy of Our Praise
Moses’s song of deliverance captures the heart of the believer when we gather in worship. “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11).
We want to tell others that he’s worthy to be praised.
Our mouths long to express what our hearts feel about God. We know his mercies are new every day, so we want to tell others that he’s worthy to be praised. Yes, we can worship God alone and with our families in our homes. But there is a unique joy in the togetherness of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices, of good and bad singing, that happens in our corporate worship (Revelation 7:9).
3. We Must Desire to See the Glory of God
The believer knows that he knows too little of the Lord. She is often unaware of his glory. He delights little in God’s beauty. Gathering together on Sunday morning is another opportunity to impress upon our hearts how great is our God. We join in the longing of David and profess: “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).
4. We Have Petitions for God
One great privilege of the believer is the ability to bring petitions before our God. Again, we can bring our individual petitions before God in our own prayer closets. But there are also communal petitions that we can only pray in the midst of God’s assembled people. That is why we must gather together on Sunday morning, to jointly petition “our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9).
We pray for one another and with one another.
In the gathered assembly, we pray for one another and with one another. We learn about what to pray for during the coming week and we learn from the example of other believers how to better bring our own petitions to God.
5. We Need Forgiveness for the Past, Strength for the Future
We’re weak and needy sheep, in need of our Saviour’s help. We need to confess our many failures from the previous week; seek his pardon; and be strengthened to continue the fight in the week ahead. As Thomas Cranmer taught us to pray on Sunday mornings, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.”
6. We Must Hear God’s Word
The apostles tell us that we need God’s word: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). Yes, we must read God’s word for ourselves. But we also need to listen to the preached word of God in Sunday worship. We need to come under the authority of that communal word for the sake of our souls. We need the word to do its work of sanctifying and cleansing us week in and week out.
7. For Fellowship With God’s People
We aren’t meant to travel alone as we journey towards Zion.
Church is communal because of the community. This is why ‘church online’ isn’t the same as the physical gathering of God’s people. We love the ‘one anothering’ of brothers and sisters that happens on Sunday. God commands us to love one another (John 13:34); live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16); serve one another (Galatians 5:13); bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2); forgive one other (Ephesians 4:32); and many more similar commands. Like every epic quest, we are not meant to travel alone as we journey towards Zion.
8. There’s No Better Way to Spend Sunday Morning
I grew up in a non-religious home. We never went to church on Sunday mornings. When I look back on those days I can’t recall anything of significance happening to me at home on a Sunday morning. It is just a hazy memory of bland mornings, blending into one another. I compare those mornings to a candle in the sunlight, when I recall the rich memories I’ve made over many Sunday mornings spent with God’s people. There is simply no better way to spend Sunday morning than with God’s people, in God’s presence.
9. We’re Preparing for When We Will Forever Be With the Lord
It was J. C. Ryle who described heaven as an unending Sabbath, where the inhabitants rest neither day or night, but continually sing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” praising the Lamb. Sunday morning worship is therefore a rehearsal for worship with the saints in glory. When we gather on Sunday morning, we remind ourselves of what is truly important; of what reality is; and we prepare our hearts for the day when we will forever be with the Lord.
Sunday worship is a rehearsal for glory.
These nine reasons should take no more time to tell your child than it takes to get the little one into their Sunday best. Hopefully, you will have quieted them for one week, even if you have not fully convinced them. Take the time to reflect on them yourself too, perhaps adding your own in time. For there are many wonderful reasons to go to church.
