I hear many supposed Christians say that they don’t need to go to church or that they feel like they can connect to God better without church. Another idea is that they can worship God better with the extra time. Whatever the excuse that’s exactly what I hear when Christians tell me they don’t go to church; excuses. The church is the body of Christ. The church is meant to be a foretaste of the Kingdom as Leslie Newbegin said. I see going to church as practice, practice for living out the mission of God and embracing the Kingdom. I had a wrestling coach in high school that said for an action to become a habit takes muscle memory, and for muscle memory to develop the body must perform that action at least 10,000 times. 10,000 times takes a lot of practice! I coach high school wrestling and if any of my athletes showed up for matches but didn’t go to practice not only would I be disappointed and not allow them to compete, but they would lose! You can’t develop the skills of wrestling without practicing and learning about them. We make our wrestlers drill the same moves over and over for a reason…to build muscle memory. To me going to church is like building muscle memory for how to carry out God’s mission in the world and live our lives in a way that is worthy of the Kingdom. You can’t learn if you don’t practice and if you don’t practice with regularity you lose your skills. Attending and participating in a church is no different. We need to practice the things that Christ has set out for us to do and sometimes we need to be refocused on what is really important. From now on whenever a Christian tells me they don’t need the church I will tell them what I tell the high school seniors who go through the motions in practice or don’t show up at all, “You’re cheating the program, but most of all you’re cheating yourself!”
-Jack
