Five Reasons for Church Attendance

 Computers are strange things. Yesterday an old note popped up twice on my iPad.  There is no logical reason for it to do so. It is dated September 2010 and is entitled Five Reasons for Church Attendance. Since I just lost my Pastor and I’m  suppose to be in a 21 day period of focused listening to God, I’m going to assume that this note is from God and not just the work of random electrons. I don’t remember why I took these notes and they are very sketchy so I’m going to have to fill in a bit.  I even googled the topic but didn’t come up with anything as good as the five words in my little note. So here they are:

Five reasons for church attendance

 

Membership, Magnification, Maturity, Ministry, Mission

That’s all there was to the note. Now my thoughts.

Membership. It’s important to belong. We are meant to practice Christianity as part of a body. I like the part of the body I’m in now. Even without the pastor. More importantly, I feel called to be here. Until I get a different call, I ain’t leaving. 

Magnification. The body is suppose to magnify the Lord. Frankly I think the body I am a part of did a good job of that but almost all if it was done by the pastor. A lot of work is going to have to be done to keep that going.  We are all called to be Christ, not just to be in a church where the pastor is doing that. 

Maturity. Church is a place where we are suppose to grow as Christians. I’m not sure any growth I’ve had recently has come from my church. For me frankly it has come mostly from writing this blog and working in Kairos. I think my church could be doing a better job of maturing me. That’s not to say it isn’t maturing others. We are all at different places and growing up is primarily our own responsibility. Maybe all a church can do is provide a place for growing, an atmosphere for growth. 

Ministry. Church is where we should minister. People seem to judge churches by how much they feel fed. But really the important thing is how much we feed. I used to do some teaching at my church, but that hasn’t happened in a long time. I guess I do some feeding in this blog, but I could do that anywhere. I minister in Kairos and I get tremendous support for that from my church. I doubt I would get that support anywhere else. 

Mission. A church should have a mission and each member should be a part of it. I think this is where the modern church is the weakest. I guess ministry is what we do for each other in the church. Mission is what we do to change our world. I see some in our church with missions. They work in nursing homes for example. Again this is a matter of individual responsibility. Our church supports lots of missions and missionaries and that’s great. But I think this category means more than that. We have to learn how to serve and change our world. We could do a much better job at this. 

How are you doing with 

Membership, Magnification, Maturity, Ministry, Mission.   Are you in the best place for living out the five Ms. Are you doing all you can do to live them out. The right fit for a church means both being at the right place and giving 100 percent. It takes both. 

Be blessed. 

Nick

 

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