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Imagine that you have out-of-town company. On Saturday night you inform your guests that you plan to go to church on Sunday morning. You invite them to go with you. These folks, however, are "not from around these parts." They don't attend church. In fact, they never heard of the practice. They come from a country where people do not participate in organized religion. These guests don't object to attending with you, but they want to know more about the practice. How do you describe a church service? What do you tell them about why you go?

Imagine how a guest might respond to your answers. "I hear you saying that church is a place where people gather for something called worship. A non-professional choir sings music that is not particularly familiar and may not even be in English. The audience also sings. Like the choir's music, these songs may be both unfamiliar and hundreds of years old. Where I come from, people enjoy popular and newly-written music. Old and unfamiliar doesn't cut it.

"At some point in this worship service," your guest continues, "a person called the minister gets up and talks ten to twenty minutes, but gives the audience neither opportunity for questions nor for stating an opposing view. Where I come from, we like to participate. We don't care much for people telling us how we are to think or what we are to do.

"You say that sometimes you participate in the educational component of church life and this 'Sunday school' does offer an opportunity for dialogue. The study material, however, comes from something called the Bible. It was written a few thousand years ago. Bible stories tell of pre-scientific people. Their civilization is, at best, primitive. In fact, parts of the Bible deal with a society of hunters and gatherers. What lessons can modern and post-modern people learn from that? Where I come from, people believe in progress. We don't think ancient people have much to teach us.

"I can understand the appeal to go to church to see your friends," this visitor continues. "What puzzles me is that you say you don't like all the people at church. You say that outside the church you would never socialize with some of those people. You say that many church people are pleasant, but others are mean and nasty. Some complain constantly. Others gossip continually. I could understand why you might tolerate that if the law required church attendance, but you choose to go. I could understand going to church even better if they paid you to go, but you contribute your hard-earned money to keep the church's doors open."

Then this out-of-town guest concludes, "The appeal of organized religion remains a mystery to me."

I admit it. I am not the best person to offer an objective response to the question of "Why do people go to church?" I have had a lifelong love affair with the Church of Jesus Christ. It began when I was a small child. I was only about four when I used to get up on Sunday morning and walk down the street to the Williard Evangelical and Reformed Church. I never wanted to miss. What a joy to be welcomed by strangers who made me feel as though I was a valued part of their community.

I remember the nursery class teacher who let us act out the Parable of the Good Samaritan over and over again until each of us got to play each part -- including being the donkey who carried the beaten man to the inn. Our fourth grade boys' class sang our theme song, "I Come To The Garden Alone," in front of the entire congregation. Those folks made us feel as though we were just a little better than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I recall the first time our junior high youth group attempted to help build a stone wall behind the church. Our efforts ended as an embarrassing failure. The task assigned us was more demanding than we were skilled. A month or two later, our youth leaders convinced us to try again at a different task. I don't even remember what it was. I do remember how good it felt when we succeeded. We were at an age where we needed to experience success in working together. Our adult leaders made certain that happened.

By the time I was a young adult, I had fallen head-over-heels in love with the Church of Jesus Christ. My experiences in the church, I have come to realize, helped form the foundation of a relationship with the Risen Savior. My church encounter with God's love led me to seminary and into more than thirty years of pastoral ministry. As with any love affair, this one has had its ups and downs. The church and I have had our disagreements. I have, on occasion, been terribly hurt by the behavior of church people. I have also had moments of doubt about God's insistence on running the world the way God wants to run it. On the other hand, I have not always lived up to the expectations of God's people and I am sure that God has had frequent second thoughts about calling me into ministry. As might be expected in a passionate love affair, I pay little attention to the shortcomings of the church and, as a person of faith, I accept God's forgiveness over and over again.

From this perspective as a lover of Christ's Church, I believe there to be three basic reasons to come to church -- to be renewed, to be reconnected, and to be reminded. First, people come to church to be renewed. There is something about life that wears you down. Go to bed. Get up. Go to work. Come home and go to bed. Get up and go to work. Come home and go to bed. The trouble with life is that it is so daily. It wears you down. We need a break from the routine. We need an experience to remind us that there is more to life than growing up, going to work, and raising a family, growing old, and then dying. We need to know this journey we take between birth and death has meaning. We also need something to energize us for the daily grind. That happens as we encounter the presence of the Holy. As the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes put it:

There is a little plant called reverence
In the corner of my soul's garden,
Which I love to have watered once a week.1


As a young minister I was critical of people who took church attendance lightly. I referred to them as "C and E Christians" -- the Christmas and Easter Crowd. Sometimes I spoke disparagingly of their "Four-Wheeled" behavior. They wait to come to church in those special four-wheel vehicles: the baby-buggy for their baptism or dedication, a limousine for their wedding, and the hearse for their funerals.

I am no longer critical. I have a better understanding. No matter how secular our society becomes, people still have a deep need to experience the sacred. Something important happens when we gather in the soft candlelight on Christmas Eve. The experience reminds us that there is something beyond Santa Claus and holiday get-togethers. People encounter something hopeful in singing "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today" on Easter Sunday. And, of course, it is absolutely essential to be in church to welcome a newborn child into the family. There is something compelling about declaring your intentions to love one another until death at the altar of the church. First of all, people come to church to be renewed.

Second, people come to church to be reconnected. Grief, for instance, elicits that need. The loss of a significant person in our web of relationships makes us feel as though we have been torn limb from limb. We need to be put back together. We need reconnected. We need to be remembered. That is why funerals are worship services. We come onto the holy ground of the church to hear a word of comfort and assurance. It begins the healing process.

It can be tough out there on the streets of the twenty-first century. Things happen that pull us limb from limb. We come to church in the hope and with the promise of being put back together. We do things that we know we should not. We hurt others. We sometimes even disappoint ourselves. We need to experience the healing, connecting power of forgiveness. Our relationships with the people we love the most can fray and even snap. We need reminded that we can be reconnected.

Recall the movie Places In the Heart. The final scene takes place in a little wooden clapboard church in East Texas and it speaks to this reconnecting power of the church. All the major players from the drama sit in the pews. The preacher reads from 1 Corinthians 13 on the meaning of love. In moving cadence he reminds us that faith, hope, and love outlast everything. Then the ushers pass the communion tray. The camera follows the elements down the pew. Each person partakes and then passes the tray saying, "The peace of the Lord be with you." As they do, we see their faces.

We see Mrs. Spalding, played by Sally Field. What a valiant struggle she experienced trying to run the family farm after her husband was murdered. Then she passes the bread and cup to none other than her deceased husband. He is seated right next to her. At his funeral the congregation sang, "In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore." Now that remembering is starting to take place. Her husband passes to the young man who murdered him and who was then set on by an angry mob and murdered himself. "The peace of the Lord be with you" has special meaning between this murderer and the murdered. The blind man Mrs. Spalding welcomed into her home is at this great Feast of the Eucharist. In a different pew sits the couple whose marriage almost faltered because of his unfaithfulness. They hold hands and smile at one another as they share the communion elements. It reminds us that the church is a place where shattered relationships can be put back together. There too in this little country church is the drifter who helped Sally Field succeed at keeping the farm. We are glad to see him included. We are not so glad to see the cruel and hypocritical banker. But he is there and he needs to be welcomed at the Lord's Table by the others. The church is home and as Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

Indeed, the church is a home where they have to take you in. It is the place where you can be put back together. People come to church first to be renewed and second to be reconnected or remembered.

Third, the church is the place people come to be reminded. For one thing, we are reminded that the Christian faith is always practiced in a community of believers. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. It is not possible to be Christian without being part of a faith community. Christianity is practiced in a community of believers. We come together to celebrate our oneness and to struggle with our differences. Sometimes the church can rejoice that we love one another. At other times we are just amazed that we can stand one another. But we take this Christian journey with that group we call our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We also come to church to be reminded of those great truths that we might forget if we stayed separated from one another. We can get so busy making a living that we forget that making a living is not the most important thing we do. We can be so overwhelmed by the anger we harbor toward a neighbor that we need to come to church just to be reminded to let go of that anger and forgive that person. We can be so wrapped up in the troubles we are having with a member of the family that we can forget other people have been through the same thing. It is nice to come to church to be reminded that we are not alone in our struggle.

The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art has a delightful display by Erika Rothenberg. It consists of a sign that might be found on the side of any church in the world. In an aluminum and glass case, the top of the sign reads, "Evenings at 7 in the Parish Hall." Then comes the weekly schedule. "Monday: Alcoholics Anonymous. Tuesday: Abused Spouses. Wednesday: Eating Disorders. Thursday: Say No To Drugs. Friday: Teen Suicide Watch. Saturday: Soup Kitchen." Then below is the announcement of Sunday's sermon title: "America's Joyous Future."

I cannot think of a better summary of what brings people to church. People come to get some help with the struggles that are an integral part of living in this world. But they also come needing to hear a word of hope. In the midst of those struggles with alcohol, abuse, drugs, suicide, and hunger, there is still hope for a joyous future. The message of that church sign in the museum is one that I preach regularly. Doing so makes my preaching seem predictable to many. I do it, however, because I know that every Sunday there is at least one person within the sound of my voice who desperately needs a word of hope for a time of utter discouragement. I do it as well because I encountered that word of hope as a small child and it caused me to fall in love with the church. As a youth and young adult I was reminded of that hope and it kept me coming back to the church. I suspect that is the reason that many of you keep coming back.

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1. I learned this verse many years ago. The source of it has been lost.




For Further Reflection And/Or Discussion


What element of the church service speaks most clearly to you?


Sermon? Music? Prayer? Physical surroundings?


In what way does this element speak to you?

Should "the church service" be defined only as worship?