Why We Attend Church

From infancy onward, my younger sister, Eunice, and I were taken to church. When I was 16 I made a weak effort to declare that I was now old enough to choose when I would and would not attend. It was a trial balloon and my little English mother quickly punctured it. She put one finger on the dinner table and said, “Young man, so long as your feet are under this table you’ll go to church when church is on.”

Later, when Kathleen and I were first married we lived across the Queen Elizabeth Way from Lorne Park College, west of Toronto. On Sundays, whenever we were not away singing or preaching somewhere, we walked the long gravel lane to the main building morning and evening to join faculty and students in Christian worship. On Wednesday nights we made the same trek to attend vespers.

You might conclude that after our 64 years together we now attend church without thought and by sheer habit, and there’s some truth to that. But we have additional reasons.

We attend church because we are Christians and the Christian Scriptures compel us to do so. Look at the Old Testament sequence in developing Sabbath worship. There was the weekly Sabbath in commemoration of creation (Ex. 20: 8-11) and a reminder of the people’s release from captivity (Deut. 5: 12-15). There were also the special occasions when throngs gathered in Jerusalem to worship in remembrance of certain great events of Israel’s history — Passover, for example.

Much later the dispersed Jews built synagogues where they could meet on the Sabbath and listen to the reading of the Law. It was a weekly practice and Isaiah had even declared earlier that the keeping of the Sabbath gave assurance that God would give his people a special blessing (Isa. 58: 13,14).

On the evening of the day of our Lord’s resurrection, the disciples gathered for what became the first Lord’s Day celebration. (Lk.24:18-36). But as a second generation of believers came along, the commitment to attend worship to some seemed less important. So believers were exhorted: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day [of Christ’s return] approaching” (Heb. 10:27).

Another compelling reason why we maintain the church-going habit is that the Bible exhorts that when his people assemble the Scriptures are to be expounded for their profit (1 Tim. 4:13). Some assert that we could read them for ourselves or hear their exposition by means of television or recordings. But there’s something about being in the company of God’s people for this exercise that can’t be matched. We share a common agreement and respond with a common “Amen.”

We also experience that attending church each Lord’s Day gives a divine order to life and this plays back on the way the whole week is lived. Turning up to worship is like resetting life’s priorities or getting one’s marching orders. That may be one reason why the Psalmist said, “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord’” (Ps. 122:1).

Finally, we attend church because in doing so we join forces with a company of God’s people who are committed to certain ministries in community and beyond. In doing so we help to keep a Christian witness alive. For examples, we support pastoral ministries to the bereaved, the hospitalized, the shut-ins, parents of the new-born. We are instructed on how moral issues in society should engage us. We support gospel, educational, and medical ministries for the needs of people in other lands. Local churches are often the unsung heroes of the Christian mandate to go into all the world with the gospel.

What goes on in church, we admit, can become hum drum or lacking in the excitement of faith. But, as Carl Bangs once said, “So long as the Bible continues to be read in church, there is hope.”

So, as we were taught in early childhood that attending church regularly is crucially important for Christians, so now we pass on that counsel to our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We say: Know the Lord; experience him in a personal way; then find a church where you can be loyal and make regular attendance and participation a key feature of your lives.

Will Same-Sex Marriages Become Universal?

Since July 20, 2005, same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada. Canada was the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize the same-sex union under the term “marriage.”

Since then, there have been about 15,000 such “marriages” in Canada and about 3,000 of them were for couples who had come from outside the country.

Now a wrinkle has turned up. On January 12, 2012, two women presented themselves before the courts to dissolve the same-sex marriage they had pledged to in Toronto in 2005. One was now living in Florida and the other in the United Kingdom.

A lawyer for the Canadian government made the point that they could not be divorced in Canada because the laws of the states from which they had come did not recognize same-sex marriages. It was also noted that by existing law, in order to obtain a divorce in Canada they had to be residents of Canada for one year.

This immediately caused a stir: If the two could not be divorced in Canada, how could they earlier have been married in Canada? Did not the same limitations pertain? Other such questions surfaced.

The controversy has been renewed and the Canadian government has set about to amend the Canadian law so that marriage and subsequent divorce in Canada can be valid. But will that make marriage or divorce valid in their places of residence – Florida and The United Kingdom?

This episode is one more bump in the road in the ongoing verbal and legal effort by an aggressive minority to make marriage something it is not. The definition that “marriage is the union of one man and one women excluding all others” has been widely agreed to for as long as history has been written.

But for more than half a century a war has been waged on several fronts against this long-accepted understanding of marriage. In addition, against the social and behavioral benefits of marriage as universally understood. Those fronts include no-fault divorces, living-together-unmarried as a widening trend, sex between consenting adults merely for recreation with no thought of marriage, and now “marriage” as a union of two persons of the same sex.

As mentioned above, the aggressiveness of small but well-organized elements in society pushing for same-sex marriage has had its effect on legislatures here and there. But the battle is far from over. Where opinion is sought from an entire population (as in California’s Proposition 8 in 2008) the majority of people favor defending marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Furthermore, there are organizations that are ready to do battle for this majority and for the historically understood definition of marriage. In my opinion the major line of defense is made up of the great number of Christian schools plus churches, Christian fellowships, cathedrals and synagogues (perhaps as many as 450,000 on this continent) where Scripture is read and expounded, seminars are conducted, retreats are sponsored, and most of all, marriages that are wholesome and honored stand out in faith communities as examples of what is possible.

The objective of this emphasis is not to act against the gay community. The issue is to retain the integrity of what the word marriage stands for. Where civil unions can accommodate civil needs this should be honored. But the objective is to keep the term marriage intact and properly circumscribed because, as one has said, this must be done because there is nothing like marriage.

Also, in faith communities, marriage is not to be emphasized in such a way as to exclude singles or give them the sense that they are second class citizens. With the brokenness of our society their numbers have increased significantly. It can be said that most of them would like to marry but the opportunity does not present itself. When the church ministers to them with equal honor it is contributing to the increase of domestic stability in the church and community as a whole.

What happens to the Canadian law defining same sex unions as “marriage” remains to be seen. And how far the efforts go to make same-sex marriage universally approved is also uncertain everywhere on this continent. However, when the verdict is finally in let us hope that by our example and by voice and vote we have all done what we can to elevate marriage as a covenanted union between one man and one woman. And at the same time, we have treated all humans with love and respect.

Roe vs Wade — Still An Issue?

In 1973 I was a college pastor. On January 22 of that year, the American Supreme Court issued its Roe vs Wade ruling that abortion was a right guaranteed by the constitution. Soon thereafter I preached a sermon on the sacredness of human life.

My text was from Psalm 139 and as I recall it was the psalmist’s prayer addressed to God as follows: “For you created my inmost being;/ you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13). The congregation was unusually focused because the Supreme Court’s action seemed to have taken the country by surprise and arguments for and against had not yet been martialed. Christians wanted help in sorting the issues out.

A day or two after that sermon, a young woman came to my study for help in dealing with the guilt the sermon had awakened. It was not that she had had an abortion but rather that she had advised a friend to have one as the way out of a difficult situation. She felt some measure of responsibility for the death of that unborn infant.

During the week after that sermon, I wrote about the abortion issue in the church’s weekly newsletter. This fell into the hands of the Catholic wife of a community doctor. Her response was a sensitive letter, warm with regard for human life, but expressing surprise that I would speak and write compellingly on the subject in what she regarded as a Protestant community. She thought that Protestants at that time had no conscience on the matter. Her letter affected me deeply.

On the following Sunday I preached on the subject again in the Sunday evening service. Christians wanted guidance from the Scriptures. Roe vs Wade had struck deeply.

Thirty-eight years have passed since January 22, 1973, and the national debate continues unabated. Roe vs Wade appears to have made the unborn into non-persons with no protection under the law and a growing majority feel their wrong keenly. Canada has no law at all regulating abortions although calls are rising again from some legislators for a parliamentary debate. Abortion has become virtually a global issue.

But it’s not just the incalculable loss of millions of babies “terminated” in the name of personal freedom that counts. It’s also the aftermath in the suffering of women and men forever emotionally wounded, the corruption the abortion industry has introduced into society, the tax dollars that have been siphoned off to support this corruption, and the polarization the debate has produced in the populace.

During the week of January 8 this year, two contenders for the nomination to the presidency of the United States, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, have each stated that Roe vs Wade should be overturned. The impression this gives is that should either be elected to the high office they would lead the fight for that action.

One point firmly established by this 38-year-long debate is that in the governance of any nation (or any other responsible organization) no official act should ever be considered beyond overturning if it is unlawful or immoral. In this case, the moral issue has been behind the debate from the start, and no number of judicial rulings will make it go away.

An Unexpected Bonus

During the recent Christmas season I got a letter from Maureen whom I had not seen or heard from in 50 years. Back then she was a teenager in the church I served in New Westminster, B.C. Now she is a grandmother and she and her husband, Charlie, have three grown children, and seven grandchildren to nurture.

I remember Maureen well. She was a quiet, shy teenager, very faithful in attendance at the youth group. I remember her as quietly thoughtful. She appeared to be open to the truth of the gospel though she did not say much. And I gathered from my contacts with her that she was blessed with a sensitive conscience.

In her handwritten letter she tells me that last June she returned to New Westminster to attend the fiftieth reunion of her graduating class at Lester Pearson High School in 1961. There she met up with Betty and Shirley. They had graduated in the same class with Maureen and all three had been members of our church’s youth group.

Her letter is addressed to both my wife and me. In it she tells us that during the weekend of celebration the three of them had spent time reflecting on their high school days. She writes me now to say thanks for helping “this quiet shy girl to grow into a self-confident adult with high moral values.”

In agreement with Betty and Shirley she writes that “we three (now 68 year olds) agreed that your family was a wonderfully positive influence on our lives.”

This is not the sort of information that one normally makes public but with her permission I am breaking that expected modesty for a very special reason – there is in it a word for pastors:

We pastors as a class want to succeed in our calling but our success is too often measured mostly in numbers: number of conversions gained, Sunday morning attendance, funds raised for missions, increase in membership, success with major or minor building projects, number of small groups, etc.

Numbers are certainly important and do give certain measurements of our ministry. Numerical growth is not to be scorned. For example, we can’t think of ourselves as succeeding if our statistics are dropping by 10% a year. Even break-even for succeeding years is a danger signal for growth-oriented pastors.

But some aspects of pastoral success can’t be reduced to numbers. Godly influence is not always easy to quantify. Nor is the giving of wise counsel. For examples, who can measure the effect of spiritual support given a wife abandoned by her husband; or wise counsel offered to a couple about to marry; or prayers with an apprehensive patient the evening before surgery; and, of course, the effect of being role models for teenagers who have value struggles as they mature.

We know that effective pastors work hard. Ours is never a mere forty-hour week. And effective pastors work to a system. We have times set aside for study and for pastoral visitation and for the administrating of a church. We build our ministries on prayer and faithfulness to the Scriptures. And often we don’t learn of the effect of our ministry until years later.

That’s why Maureen’s letter has given me such a surge of joy. It has now been followed up by a pleasant telephone conversation. In it all I am reminded of St. Paul’s assurance to the Corinthian believers that, “your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (I Cor. 15:58). Seed sown may not germinate immediately, but it is seed sown. The harvest is with the Lord. For this renewed contact we give our Savior all the glory and we rejoice!

Will 2012 be the year?

Many people will enter 2012 with a sense of cosmic anxiety, whether it functions as an undefined dread or as a state of mind woven openly into the flow of their daily thoughts.

They may wonder: Is this the year for markets to collapse causing my life’s savings to plummet? Or will a surge of high inflation do much the same damage? Will terrorism continue to spread even to the country in which I live? Who will protect children from sexual predators who seem to be everywhere? And is cyber-warfare the next global menace, which could disable the electrical grid, the financial infrastructure, or even the minimal functioning of government?

All of this makes us wonder again, will 2012 be the year? And if so, the year for what?

Christians have a special answer to the question. It is lodged in the word “hope.” Paul wrote of hope to young pastor Titus who had been assigned a difficult mission on the Island of Crete where paganism flourished. Paul reminded him of the “hope in eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began.” (Titus 1:2)

Elsewhere he writes to the Christians in Imperial Rome that because God has forgiven our sins through our faith in Christ “we rejoice in the hope of seeing God’s glory fully revealed” (Rom. 5:2 free translation).

“Hope” is the Christian’s word for the future’s positive outcomes, but a word always lodged in eternity.

This eternal hope tempers our fears and at the same time strengthens our resolve to live faithfully and with strong Christian intention in “this present evil world.” Will you join me in the following resolves for 2012?

I. We resolve to make 2012 the year for rooting our lives more deeply in the daily practice of earnest prayer, letting our prayers blanket the world in faith. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”

Just as Abraham’s prayer for mercy for his nephew, Lot, brought a divinely ordered escape, so, today it will be the prayers of the saints that hold back divine judgment from a world gone sadly awry (Gen. 18).

II. We resolve to make 2012 the year for deeper commitment to the ministries of Christ’s church on earth. Churches everywhere on this continent need renewal. E. Stanley Jones wrote that although the church on earth is admittedly flawed, it is still the best instrument that exists for doing God’s work in the world. But as Paul so clearly saw, it is concentrated prayer on the part of the saints that make its ministry effectual (Eph. 6:18).

III. We resolve to make 2012 the year for a deeper commitment to personal righteousness in daily living. The sweep of relativism (“there are no absolutes”) and the excessive application of pragmatism to moral issues (“truth is what works”) has brought a moral softness to all of us. This softness affects the church at all levels. It makes it too easy for us to look the other way rather than face and resist evil for what it is and stand for righteousness.

In that regard, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink (do’s and don’ts) but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Beware: the issue here is not self-righteousness, a deadly substitute. It is true righteousness – the commitment to live out our lives in Christ by God’s given moral standards as they make their appeal to our consciences.

IV. Above all else, in 2012 we resolve to keep our ultimate hope anchored in the visible return of Christ. We know that we occupy enemy territory here on earth and the New Testament has many promises and exhortations that say our eternity with Christ is where the Christian hope is anchored. Someone has estimated that one out of every 28 verses in the New Testament is centered on this glorious hope: Christ will return and every eye shall see him! Will 2012 be the year?

Let us lift up our eyes, believing that 2012 could be the year! And in so believing may this renewed hope give us holy zeal for living for him in the here and now.