Everyone Needs a Church
Everyone Needs a Church
Fifty years ago, 87% of US adults identified as Christians; however, the number of those who identify as Christians and regularly attend church has been declining for decades. According to Pew Research, the decline in the US has recently either slowed or leveled off.
Currently in Missouri, 62% of people identify as Christians, while 33% say they are religiously unaffiliated. Nationally, the percentage of those claiming to be Christians ranges from a high of 79% in two states to a low of 43% in one.
People writing off the church is not a new phenomenon. C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian minds of the twentieth century, described his initial experience with church this way: “When I first became a Christian… I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my room and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to churches… I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on, I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nonetheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.”
My own church experience began when I attended my first service at the age of less than one week. I have been in church most Sundays since then. I have witnessed both the best and worst aspects of church in multiple congregations, both those I attended and the six I pastored.
When churches function as God intended, they not only serve God they serve others too. The following statement has been attributed to multiple individuals, including Augustine and Pauline Phillips, who wrote the “Dear Abby” column. Regardless of who made it, the statement is true, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”
While I am not certain on what the original author based this statement, it sounds a lot like what Jesus said in Mark 2:17, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (NLT)
In his most recent sermon, my senior pastor, Rusty Wirt, said this about our church, “No perfect people allowed.” Healthy churches recognize they are imperfect and join others who are imperfect to: worship God, serve one another, and help those who need to know God loves them. Although no congregation does this perfectly, it is what God calls his church to be and why everyone needs a church.