Church Attendance: A Call to Worship – Together
December 12, 2023
Katherine Schultz
As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow through the diner’s windows, Jake, Ryan, and Alex found themselves at their usual corner table. Amidst the clatter of plates and the aroma of hearty meals, their conversation turned to matters of faith.
Jake, a steadfast believer, initiated the dialogue. “You know, attending church has been such a grounding experience for me. It’s a commitment that really shapes my life.”
Alex, equally devoted, took a bite of his burger. Then he said, “Absolutely, Jake. There’s a certain solace in the routine.”
Ryan, sipped his iced tea and nodded in agreement. After a moment, he chimed in with a confident smile. “Well, I probably go to church way more than average. I mean, I’m there at least 8 or 10 times a year.”
The statement lingered in the air, Ryan unaware of its significance. Jake and Alex exchanged subtle glances, recognizing the irony in Ryan’s prideful assertion. To them, attending church was a weekly commitment, not an occasional event. They had talked about church occasionally in the past, but neither man had realized how different their convictions and behaviors were when it came to actually going to a worship service with other Christians regularly. And that left Ryan reveling in what he perceived as an above-average dedication.
The Numbers on Church Attendance
Their experiences reflect contemporary religious practices in the United States. Church attendance reflects a diverse range of engagement levels, as highlighted by several studies. According to the Pew Religious Landscape Study, approximately 36% of adults attend religious services at least once a week, while 33% attend once or twice a month or a few times a year. Meanwhile, 30% report attending seldom or never. The Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute observed a decline in overall attendance, with 75% of Americans reporting attendance at least once a year in March 2020, dropping to 66% by spring 2022.
The percentage of those who claimed to “never” attend church increased from 25% to 33% during the same period. Notably, research by pastor and Christian researcher Ryan Burge indicates a decreasing trend in regular attendance among self-identified evangelicals, with 40.2% attending church once a year or less. While Lifeway Research found that half of U.S. adults express belief in God without doubts, with 71% describing themselves as at least slightly religious, church attendance doesn’t bear that out. Some 68% seldom or never attend church, while 32% attend at least monthly, which include only 18% who attend weekly.
So does the Bible even indicate that church attendance matters to God?
Commanded to Gather
According to Hebrews 10:24-25, we are to gather together with other believers regularly so we can encourage one another to do good. “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Author and professor Donald S. Whitney asks 10 questions to diagnose your spiritual health. One of them is “Do you delight in the bride of Christ?” As we mature in our faith, we should want to be together with other believers as the apostles and early church gathered for multiple reasons: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).
Worship is Not Just a Solo Event
Throughout the bible, worship is a group activity, with the descriptions using plural pronouns as in Psalm 95:6: “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” It is a communal event, a gathering of the whole body of believers, for the purpose of, among other things, “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:19); sharpening one another (Proverbs 27:17); confession of sin, prayer for one another to be healed (James 5:16); sharing the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:26); making disciples and celebrating baptism (Matthew 28:19).
It is a beautiful thing to be with other believers. Psalm 133:1 says, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” That’s because it allows us to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) and to “be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” (Romans 1:12)
The Church Isn’t Perfect
Of course, whenever people are present, the flaws of people show up. We might want church to be perfect, and we might object when the people there let us down, but that’s actually something that the Bible explains: we are all flawed, imperfect, and missing the mark of holiness (Romans 3:23) because of what the Bible calls the Fall (Genesis 3). Instead of being frustrated that the church is filled with imperfect people, we should be grateful that we will fit right in!
And the Bible has a solution for how to handle common challenges, starting with our own imperfections. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). But also how to deal with conflicts and disagreements between each other (Matthew 18:15-17).
And if we are tempted to stay away from church because of hypocrites we find there, we can remember what God things of hypocrisy (Matthew 23:1-12): He is against it! So if I’m choosing sides, and want to oppose hypocrites, it seems clear to me I shouldn’t be leaving the church, when God says I should be going. I’m supposed to be living out the proper priorities as God directs them in Matthew 6:33: “ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.”
Final Thoughts
Embrace your faith journey and get involved in a Christ-centered, Bible-based local church. If you are not regularly, frequently, weekly at a church worship service in person with other believers, please start this weekend. The people there won’t be perfect, so you don’t need to be either. The people there will want to be with their friend, so you can join them and make friends, too.
More important than the people, God will be there. He promised that wherever a few people gather in His name, He would be in their midst. And he wants to be with you. So much that he sent his Son, Jesus, to live among us, and to die for us so that we could live with God forever. Find a church that teaches you what the Bible says about Jesus every week. And then go every week to be with him and his earthly family, the other Christian believers that gather to be with him, too.
Afterall, worship is one of the few things we know how to do here on earth that transfers directly to heaven!
Now What?
Some of the questions on the 3-D Worldview Survey have to do with gathering with other believers. If you’d like to see sample questions to see how the survey could help you or your students better understand a biblical worldview, check out the pdf below for some questions to get you started.
#3dworldview #biblicalworldview #ChurchAttendance
