I Quit Going to Church

By Joel Atwell

“… you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God …”

Dear church,

A couple weeks ago I quoted from Dr. Dennis Kinlaw’s book, Preaching in the Spirit. Obviously it’s written primarily to those who have been called by God to assume the role of preacher/teacher of his Word, but so much of what he has to say applies across the board to every believer. For instance …

“Perhaps no words of Scripture are more shocking than the ones that now fell on the disciples’ ears … ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (Jn. 20:21).

The two Greek words for ‘sent’ are used about forty times in John; both are found in this verse. Jesus’ use of these words reveals the profound awareness of the mission he had, the acute sense of ‘sent-ness.’ They are expressive of how Jesus saw his relationship to the Father and to the world. His expression in Greek literally means, ‘the sending-me Father.’ This sense of mission had been determinative of Jesus’ entire life. Now he turned to that band of disciples huddled together in a secret room on Easter evening and said, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’

In this way, Jesus spells out the Christians’ commission in the world. We are to be to the world something of what Jesus is to us. He came to redeem the world; having finished the earthly part of that commission, he sends us as his co-workers to complete the job … What a job! If every person is as big as his job, then Christians should stand tall. We are engaged in the most vital business in the world, God’s business …

However, we should carefully note to whom Jesus speaks here. Not only were the apostles in that room. Cleophas and his nameless friend were there; the women who had found Jesus’ tomb that morning were also there. To all of them, he gave the same commission that he had received from his Father. Jesus was sent so that the world would not perish, but be saved. Now he sent his own with the same commission.

This has profound implications for all who claim the name of Christ. Every person has the right to choose whether to become a Christian. Once a person has chosen, though, he finds that he has made another decision. His business (no matter his vocation) is now to finish the ministry which Christ began … God calls every Christian with Christ to the task of saving the world. What a task!”

Simply “going to church” falls woefully short of what Jesus has in mind for his followers. His intention, and what he died and rose to make possible, is that we would “be the church” in the world – those who carry out His commission of reconciliation and restoration in the power of his Spirit.

May it be so of each of us,

Joel