Make worship of God into something that you are comfortable with.
Stay home on Sunday. You don’t need to go meet with a congregation to worship God, do you? Enjoy some needed and well deserved down time with your family.
Teach your kids what really is important in life…the family. It’s more important than anything else, right? It’s so important that many churches do not even gather on Christmas day.
Church pews, and stained glass, pastors , and Sacraments…isn’t all that stuff just “religion”?
So relax. Do it your way. Get comfortable.
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I think this is exactly what the devil would say, and is saying.
What do you think?
Filed under: Why go to church?, Worship |
The Old Adam Lives! 
So true. George Barna would have it the same way! When the congregation does come together, they separate the age groups into different parts of the building. Apparently the message is different, or at least needs to be said in a different way depending on your age. Rubbish! Good post.
Exactly. That’s why we’re attending faithfully. I like the church in general, but I have some real issues with the Sunday School. I’ve decided to ask the kids each week if they want SS or church. The Little Prince wanted church with me (he’s a real mama’s boy) but the other two chose the circus, I mean, SS.
No matter how I feel about a few things there, generally I’m happy there. As long as we don’t get something taught to us that I just can’t allow my kids to be exposed to, we’ll attend faithfully. I don’t want to teach them that church is optional.
Kyle,
When the message is truly relevant, it ought be relevant for all age groups, in all places, for all seasons.
That’s one reason the ‘hip’ (cool) congregations, bother me so. They exclude so many by their affections for the culture.
The Church IS relevant for all.
Thanks, Kyle.
T.C.,
I know what you mean about S.S..
I once overheard one of our S.S. teachers tell the (young) kids that they ought finish their craft projects and forget about going in for Communion and the blessing they receive from the pastor.
I too, prefer they be in church. But it just doesn’t seen to work out that way.
Good point about what is coming out of the preacher’s mouth. There are many churches where I’d much rather have the kids work on a craft project than to hear herectical preaching and teaching.
Depends on the church.
If you are attending a “church” where Christ is really not being given to you and the Gospel is confounded and it’s not sacramental, it is in fact better to stay home.
To put it another way: If you are at a sacramental church where the Gospel is hidden otherwise you are at least receiving the Gospel in the sacrament despite the rogue priest/pastor. Sasse makes this very argument. The Gospel cannot survive long without the sacraments, at length the Word dissipates like a dying echo and finally you are left with zero, nothing different than the hundreds of rank pagan religions out there with biblical labeling only.
That’s why the REAL ELCA issue, for example, was not the homosexuality vote, but its communing with UM. Some enthusiasts (e.g. John Piper) saw the tornado that hit that day as a “sign” against the homosexual vote; when in fact the pro vote on homosexuality WAS ITSELF the sign of the real and deeper issue, its communion doors opening up wide. They forsook the sacrament of the LS by doing so, the homosexual issue was merely the sign/effect of that. This is nothing new, Paul said the same thing in Romans 1, those baser sins were not the cause and root of sin but the effects and signs of the root of sin itself. Because they did not retain the knowledge of God they turned to worship idols…homosexuality…invented sins…etc…
Thus, you might be better off watching a football game on Sunday as opposed to hearing a message at a false church. Because at a false church you are slowly secretly being hardened against the Word of God. Word’s do matter in the church, doctrine does matter, sacraments do matter…life or death.
Larry
Larry is certainly making sense here. In a ‘church’ filled with doctrines for itching ears, where the gospel is often squarely placed, and then left, outsdie the camp in favor of lots of law (biblical’ or otherwise), appealing served up to feed the ego, staying away makes sense.
I’m afraid I’ve been to far too many places over far too many years where the means of grace, especially the Gospel, have been the LAST thing that anyone has wanted to find aid or comfort by. That’s, no doubt, why we have ministers and entire denominations eseentially tearing up their doctrinal statements and worse, the clear message of the faith itself in favor of all manner of error and deceit.
May He keep us from falling, and by HIS Grace, HIS work, and HIS Power, present us, in Christ alone, unstained before His glorious throne.
The GOSPEL is always relevant because we are all children of Adam. You could really delve into some themes in this post. Good one.
Howard,
Indeed!
One has to come to realize, eventually, that what Luther said about the sacrament, the Lord’s Supper was true. That “this sacrament is the Gospel” and thus any altering of the words is an attack on the Gospel. There are several points here to peel apart. The sacrament is the Gospel because it states the Gospel (Good News) all the words of institution are nothing more or less than the very Gospel “This is My body/blood…given…for the forgiveness of sin…”, what it gives in reality is the actual Gospel it gives the crucial “for you” (take eat…take drink) without which the Gospel cannot be the Gospel. Even the Gospel message purely displayed without the for you is not the Gospel (Good NEWS). And faith can only cling to that which is said “This My body/blood…”
When Luther recognized this he recognized the deep deep issue, this is the Gospel and it is a battle for the Gospel. Any altering of the words is a war against the Word of God, fundamentally that’s Satan from day one, a war of word, “hath God really said”. All other “gospels” are nothing more or less than a war of words and thus a battle for life and death since man lives ONLY by “every Word that proceeds from God” and literally the incarnate Word Himself who says, “I am the way, truth and life…I am the resurrection…”.
Jesus said, “if you love Me you will feed my sheep”, to Peter and that true shepherds give the sheep pasture and feed them, false teachers are robbers and thieves. And this is nowhere more true than in the Lord’s Supper. Feeding His sheep doesn’t not mean preaching confused Law and Gospel. And feeding sheep does not mean preparing a pure Gospel meal displaying it behind a window that starving orphans can only stare at and hunger after until they have money to buy it or can ever do so. Feeding sheep means delivering the food, literally. The food of the Gospel, when the for you is not delivered quite literally, via false doctrine preventing it, one has not actually fed the sheep but put the good food behind a glass window for them to hunger after never able to buy it and eat it. Thus, when by false doctrine “is” becomes “represents” or the bread and the wine become only “signs” one is not actually delivering the Gospel, the body and blood of Christ given/shed for the forgiveness of sins, but mere representations and signs. But representations and signs were not given and shed for “my” (pro me) sins, Christ’s body and blood were and thus by way of false doctrine the Gospel is not pro me, for me, and thus not given and in the end, no matter how pure otherwise preached, no gospel at all – no actual feeding of sheep and thus just food behind a window withheld from the sheep, taunting the hungry sheep, the very opposite of feeding the sheep and the very opposite of loving Christ. Because if “you love Me”, said Jesus, “you will feed My sheep” and true shepherds will GIVE pasture (feeding), false robbers and thieves will not.
L
You know, in defense of this, kind of, I can understand where this “home church” idea comes from. It’s hard to understand if you’ve been Lutheran your entire life but if you’ve grown up in or been doctrinally mesmerorized in heterodoxy it’s not. Because at length one detects something is wrong with the preaching. Keep in mind the Rick Warren’s of the world are the logical extensions of the Calvin’s of the world. So eventually you find yourself in an empty happy clappy church that evolved from a more conservative background somewhere in history past. One detects in the more overt in your face situation that “this is dead and wrong”. So one and one’s family becomes a spiritual gypsy. You’ve never heard or know ANYTHING or very little of Luther. It’s nearly as alien to you as Buddhism may be. In fact you might actually know more about Buddhism due to appologetics than confessional Lutheranism. So your stuck in the land of a thousand Arminian/Calvisnistic churches. Literally you can’t throw a stone without hitting one. They are like a pox on the land and country side. Yet at length these churches and their derivative congregations down the line have gone further south. So one ends up in the “where do I go to hear the Law and Gospel”? Searching high and low no such church exists. Not for hundreds of miles, even thousands. You’ve tasted of the right division of the Law and Gospel through some book or the internet, but it remains a dream as to reality. So you end up at home because its safer than another moralistic lawgospellaw confusion sermon with no sacraments whatsoever.
It’s better to stay home than go to those moralistic lawgospellaw confusing sacramentless false churches who give this choking teeth shattering burnt crap to you served with a very very very thin biblical sauce on top to help you choke it down.
L
I know this post is a few years old, but Larry has described my position exactly. It’s extremely hard to know what to do in the Sacramental-less desert.
Hang in there, Mitchell.
Who knows, you might just be one of the instruments that God uses to bring His life giving Water to that desert.
Not discounting how tough it may still be.