Why go to church?

[Abner]

I became a Christian a few months ago. I had been looking into it for a while, and had an experience that convinced me that Jesus is real and wants to have a relationship with him.

I have a friend who tells me I need to start attending church, but I'm not so sure I need to. She's grown up a Christian, and I think she just thinks she needs to go because she's never known anything different. I think I can have a perfectly good relationship with God outside of church, and that I don't need to be part of any sort of organized religion.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Because Jesus Christ says to. He wants you to worship, and in the community of believers, because He wants us to grow together with Him and with each other.

This is an article I wrote on the subject:

God the All-Powerful desires worship because the core of God's essence is love. Love is the foundation of all true worship. I say "true worship" because there are forms which are not true, such as pagan worship. The pagans worshipped their gods and idols out of fear. It was an "I scratch your back, you keep from destroying me" type of worship. The pagans wanted to be kept from something negative. They prayed out of fear that unless they prayed, they would be hurt. This is evident in ancient myths, fables, and poetry. Some harm is about to befall a person or group of persons and those people pray for relief to appease the gods. There are only a handful of exceptions to this rule.

Christian prayer, on the other hand, imitates Trinitarian Love. Our God, the Holy Trinity, is three divine Persons, each one pouring Himself out infinitely and for all eternity into the other two Persons. This is not self-love, as it would be if each divine Person sat in His own being and held it to Himself. It is, rather, an all giving love. Each Person loves each other Person to such a great extent that it is perfect and harmonious. They pour out Their entire Being to one another.

God created the world. The world had to be created in being and, as St. Augustine writes, God must be omnipresent (i.e. He must exist everywhere) for things outside Himself to exist. Our existence is based on God. In a way, as St. Augustine notes also, we are the recipients of His Being, His Essence, His Love. This is based of the model of the ancient philosopher Plotinus who believed that the most perfect, that which is supreme and complete, spills over it's existence (not it's personhood, mind you, but it's existence) in creating lower levels of existence. God, of course, cannot pour His entire existence into creation, because His entire existence is infinite and creation is not.

This leads us to reason one for our own need to worship Him: it is our place to worship Him. We were created based on His existence (without His existence, we could certainly not exist). St. Augustine says, "Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they will not rest until they rest in You." God, being all loving, wants us to rest in His peace. He wants us to feel His love. This is why He desires us to worship Him.

We sinned. We needed then even more to worship God, because His peace was harder to reach. In the Old Testament, we even sometimes see the Jews taking on the ways of the Pagans and worshipping God out of fear and not out of love. Jesus came to mend our hearts. He loved us so much that He gave up His life for us, even to the point of draining the blood from His body and being hanged upon a cross. Blood is a symbol of life and of love. He poured it out for our sake to God the Father. Jesus not only claimed our salvation, but he also provided for us an example of how to love God. Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity Incarnate, gave Himself, His Live, His Love, His Blood, His entire essence as greatly and as purely as any man could. He continued, in His death, to pour out His being to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. Even in His death, He cooperated in Trinitarian Love and opened for us the door to follow Him and to pour ourselves out completely (though we are only to die for God as Jesus did, if forced to die) in our lives. This is what it means to open oneself to God. To pour forth your every effort, your every strength, your every love for the greater glory of God. This is the purest worship men can give.

This is the purest worship men can give, and do you think it adds much to the infinite majesty of God? Of course not. God does not need this worship. But He knows that in giving it, we will be content because we will be acting in the life of God. God knows that "it is in giving that we receive". God asks our worship because God wants us to be happy. God wants our worship because He knows that in giving all that we are and all that we have to Him, we will find ourselves most content.

Any notion that God requires worship or that God is anything less than selfless is from Satan.

[Abner]

OK, rather than reply to your whole post at once, I want to address only your first point. After we've gotten that settled, we can move on to other stuff.

[quote]God the All-Powerful desires worship because the core of God's essence is love. Love is the foundation of all true worship. I say "true worship" because there are forms which are not true, such as pagan worship. The pagans worshipped their gods and idols out of fear. It was an "I scratch your back, you keep from destroying me" type of worship. The pagans wanted to be kept from something negative. They prayed out of fear that unless they prayed, they would be hurt. This is evident in ancient myths, fables, and poetry. Some harm is about to befall a person or group of persons and those people pray for relief to appease the gods. There are only a handful of exceptions to this rule.[/quote]

OK, I think most Christians go to church because, at base, they want to escape hell. They don't want to burn forever, so they do what their priest or pastor has told them they have to in order to avoid the eternal fire. How is this any different from the pagan worship you describe here?

[Socrates]

[quote name='Abner' date='Apr 12 2005, 01:00 PM'] I became a Christian a few months ago. I had been looking into it for a while, and had an experience that convinced me that Jesus is real and wants to have a relationship with him.

I have a friend who tells me I need to start attending church, but I'm not so sure I need to. She's grown up a Christian, and I think she just thinks she needs to go because she's never known anything different. I think I can have a perfectly good relationship with God outside of church, and that I don't need to be part of any sort of organized religion. [/quote]
As Catholics, we believe that Jesus Christ founded a Church, and founded Sacraments (Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Penance, etc.) that are necessary for our salvation.

Obviously, this is alot of material to cover, but if you want to learn why we believe this, you might check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church and begin reading. Some of our apologists here may be able to help you more with this.

If you read the Bible (Acts of the Apostles, letters of St. Paul, etc.), you will see that Christians have always been part of a Church, and have practiced the faith as a community, not as a purely individualistic and private practice.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='Abner' date='Apr 12 2005, 02:17 PM'] OK, I think most Christians go to church because, at base, they want to escape hell. They don't want to burn forever, so they do what their priest or pastor has told them they have to in order to avoid the eternal fire. How is this any different from the pagan worship you describe here? [/quote]
Forgive me Abner, but I think I see you asking a deeper question: why be a Christian? And how is being a Christian different from being a non-Christian?

(Edit: Duh, your first post pretty much answers my questions. Sorry!)

Edited April 12, 2005 by Mateo el Feo

[Abner]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' date='Apr 12 2005, 01:54 PM'] Forgive me Abner, but I think I see you asking a deeper question: why be a Christian? And how is being a Christian different from being a non-Christian?

(Edit: Duh, your first post pretty much answers my questions. Sorry!) [/quote]
Right. I'm a Christian. I just am not convinced I need to go to Church.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Abner' date='Apr 12 2005, 02:17 PM'] OK, rather than reply to your whole post at once, I want to address only your first point. After we've gotten that settled, we can move on to other stuff.



OK, I think most Christians go to church because, at base, they want to escape hell. They don't want to burn forever, so they do what their priest or pastor has told them they have to in order to avoid the eternal fire. How is this any different from the pagan worship you describe here? [/quote]
I go to Mass to receive my Lord and God in the Eucharist and to offer up myself to Him out of love.

[jasJis]

Abner,
We go to Church to worship and live as a Community to help each other. For example, Paul makes it very clear that Christians are the Body of Christ. We all have our roles to help others and to be helped. In a Church, others make themselves available to you, and you make yourself available to them. Outside a Church, where would you go when your faith is attacked? Outside a Church, how would people know to come to you if their faith is weak? God created humans as social creatures. God created us to live in societies. A Church is utilizing what God created us with. Why not walk when God has given us legs?

[Aloysius]

it is one of the ten commandments. since the beginning of the Christian Church, since the Apostles themselves as is related in Acts, the Church has met in public worship on sundays including the Breaking of the Bread, the Holy Eucharist, every week on sunday.

if you claim you don't even have some tiny little part of you that is motivated out of fear of hell, you're either a liar or you don't really believe in or know the nature of hell. that's part of why God created hell... and God understands that as imperfect as we are our motivations won't always be pure... such practical things appeal to our desires as well. don't cultivate a fear of hell, but acknowledge that that is part of every True Christian's motivations... ultimately we should do it only out of pure love for Him, but God does have a purpose in the threat of Divine Judgement that should not be taken lightly.

anyway, cutting yourself off from the Christian community is the surest way to discover a false christ, to lose the focus on who christ really is.

"We do not seek a Christ whom we have invented, for it is only in the real communion of the Catholic Church that we encounter the real Christ" -Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Be sure that the Christ you know is the same Christ that died on the Cross and founded a Church. The only way to be sure of this is to go to that Church and find out just what He is like.

The scriptures were not written to be read, most people at the time of their writings were illiterate. the scriptures were meant to be PROCLAIMED. Let he who has ears let him hear. Go listen to the scriptures, and explanations of them, at weekly mass. listen to the priest explain them, and pray along with the rest of the Christians in attendence. if you're not Catholic that's alright, simply say a pray for Jesus to come into your heart when everyone else goes up for the Eucharist. pray along with other Christians, listen to the word proclaimed alongside other Christians... encounter the same Christ that these other Christians are encountering. for the devil is decietful and when he cuts someone off from the herd they make easier prey... even in little things one by one he can erode your understanding of who Christ really is so much so that you could live your life thinking you know Him but when you come to Him and call out "Lord, Lord" He will say He never knew you.

I don't know how well acquainted with the real Christ you are right now, that's not for me to judge. However, I can tell you that the surest way to stay acquainted with the True Christ is to attend Church every week on the Lord's day as the early Christians did, the day the Lord rose from the dead.

[Aloysius]

[url="http://masstimes.org"]Find a Church and times to attend HERE[/url]

[Abner]

Interesting thoughts. I'll reflect and get back to you all. Thanks.

[cmotherofpirl]

What did you do to make yourself a christian?

[Aloysius]

bump

[Archangel]

I go to church to receive the Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ.

[DianJo]

Hypothetical:
Your grandmother, for as long as you can remember, has been there. As a young child, you knew of your grandmother because your parents took you to visit her and you claimed to love her. Now you are older - of age, so to speak and you haven't seen or visited your grandmother in quite a few years. In fact, you know she's there but you can't really say that you know her anymore.
You say you love her. You say that you don't need to visit her to love her. All this time, she's wondering where you are and why you don't come to visit anymore. She naturally assumes you have no need for her any longer and sadly, she thinks you don't really love her.

One day, you decide to visit her. You knock on the door and she answers. She stands there and she looks at you with this puzzled look on her face and then you realize - she doesn't know who you are! She hasn't seen you in years and dosen't recognize you! Now what? Well, you have to re-establish your relationship with her. You have to let her know and show her how much you love her.

In order to cultivate any relationship, you have to work at it. You can't just say that you love someone and then never show it. In order to grow in a relationship, you have to spend time with that person, you have to learn about that person, find out what makes them tick, their likes and dislikes. In order to do all this, you must [u]be with[/u] the person (church), you spend time talking to them on the phone (prayer). The great thing about this is that the more time you spend with this person, the more you get to know this person, the more you love them and the more you WANT to be around them, in fact, you never want to be without them! And the feelings are returned!

Church is where we go to learn about God, to learn about all the things He has made available to us so we can be happy on this earth and be with Him forever. We go to church to learn about the "roadmap" that he left us and how to read it, where the pitfalls are and which road is the best to take. We go to learn about all the other people that love him, too. Have you ever asked for advise from another person about someone you both know? That's what we are there for in a "church community" - To help one another come to know, love and serve God in this life so we can be with Him in the next. So when we knock on His door to visit, he won't give us the puzzled look and not recognize us like your grandmother did!

Being Christian is not about being alone in your beliefs. It's about being in a community of believers. A relationship with God is not stictly a horizontal one, it's also vertical, encompassing all those around us because to know and love God is to show it in your everyday life - that's how people know you are Christian!