What Makes Church a Blessing?
It is not an option for us as believers to take or leave the church as a whole. If we are true Christians, we will want to be a vital part of all that God is doing today in and through His people. Church should not be some place where, as Adrian Rodgers humorously put it, we go to be “hatched, matched, and dispatched.” That was never God’s original intention.
Church does not have to be a miserable experience. It should be an oasis in a hot desert. It should be a place where we come to be refreshed, revived, and equipped. We should not dread it, but look forward to it—even long for it. Like David, we should be able to say, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the LORD'” (Psalm 122:1).
“As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.”—C. S. Lewis
Church should be a place to worship God, learn more about Him, straighten our priorities, help others, and use the gifts that He has given us. That way we can be equipped to go back into the world as changed people representing Jesus Christ.
