Why I Still Go to Church

I began to be awakened by the Holy Spirit in a different way around 2016. Up to that point, I had been taught about Holy Spirit and I had certainly had encounters with Holy Spirit. Even so, God began awakening me to deeper realities and taking me down a new road.

I was awakened to New Covenant realities - Christ in me, the hope of glory! I became aware that in Christ, God has made his home in us. He doesn’t go away and come back, he simple abides inside his children.

Continuing on, I was awakened to the reality that God speaks to us. Not just that He spoke once in a book I can read, but that He is still speaking. He wants to commune with us.

The experience of these revelations also led to a mad quest of learning about the gifts of the Spirit and how they operate - a topic that had been completely left out of my religious training up to that point. 

Naturally, this all led to a new understanding of the priesthood of all believers, the hierarchy of the church, and of course, my own calling into the ministry. To be honest, I knelt before the altar on the night of my ordination with some hesitation toward the theology behind such an office. Even so I went forward, based on the calling I knew God had given me.

Book after book, mentor after mentor, experience after experience I exhaustively deconstructed church as I had always understood it. It was disorienting, but exhilarating; stressful but freeing. 

During this time I felt led to plant a church with a few good friends. We would operate in the Holy Spirit. We would help each other listen to Jesus. We would give away most of the money we brought in to those in need in our community. We would largely be free of pastor-centered ministry and church bureaucracy. We would be a source of encouragement for other churches that were hungry for a different way.

And we did!

And we were!

We set up camp in my basement and functioned as a small Holy Spirit oasis for several years. It was a joy and I would do it again!

So I’ve experienced an array of church expressions. I grew up Catholic and spent some time with the Missouri Synod Lutherans. I see the value of liturgy and ritual. Later, I would come to Jesus among my Nazarene arm-raising friends. I see the value in their emphasis on the fruit of the Spirit. Later still, I found myself at home with pentecostals and charismatics, and organic church wanderers. I see their emphasis on simplicity and Holy Spirit as a much-needed correction to the church today. 

Today, I find my home among believers of all different types. Some I only connect with on Facebook, they are organic wanderers. Some are in institutional churches, some have given up on the institution. Some are pastors, some are on the fringes. 

But all of them are attempting to follow Jesus in their own way. I guess I’ve also been awakened to the fact that in our quest to be “right” about church, we can miss the beautiful variety of Jesus-lovers available to us.

Circle back.

After years of awakening, deconstructing, reconstructing, serving on staffs, preaching, church planting, and wandering, I now find myself back at a great, big, institutional church. 

This begs the question: Why do I still go to church? If God is everywhere and no one really has it right, why do I keep participating?

Here are my best reasons.

1. I need help believing. Yes God is everywhere, and no we don’t need to sit under 25 minute talk every week in order to be saved. But friends I am simply not strong enough to keep on believing out here on my own. I NEED someone other than me to preach me the Gospel consistently. I need to hear it in word and in song, and I need to hear it in the presence of other fallen human beings who are likewise clinging to its saving truth.

2. I believe in people. Do I think the institution with its politics and hierarchy and bureaucracy has some problems? Sure do. Do I think pastor-centered ministry has its own problems too? Yes I do. But friends, can you also see all the good? So many sincere, Spirit-filled Christ followers fighting the good fight of faith! So many loving and praying and contending for one another! I want to be part of that!

3. The church needs us.  This is not meant to be an arrogant statement. The church really does need the prophets, the artists, the dancers and the wanderers, the people who ask good questions and work to shift the cultural tide. The church needs people who question how the sausage is made and who seek for deeper things. If that’s you, friend, please don’t abandon this imperfect thing we call the church.

4. Jesus loves the church. After all, it is his bride. And his bride is not made up of institutions, titles, or positions, but of people, individuals. Beautiful, struggling, faith-filled people who are following Jesus through this difficult world. Let’s not be so busy being critical of what’s wrong that we miss what Jesus has gotten incredibly right.

Receive this prayer: No matter where you have wandered and what weird places your journey has taken you, may you continue to find beauty and sustenance in the varied expressions of the gatherings of Jesus’ people.