I hate going to church

Let me explain. I don’t hate gathering with God’s people, I actually love it! I don’t hate many of the things that we have associated with “going to church” like praying with other believers, reading and studying Scriptures, breaking bread and sharing meals. I love those as well. Fellowship and community with other believers is challenging and comforting at the same time and I would love to have more of it.

So why do I lead off my post with “I hate going to church”. Here’s why…

I hate that phrase

I hate what it has become

I hate that people use “going to church” to mean pausing what they are doing to carve out a few hours for gathering with the church before going back to what they were doing. I don’t like waking my kids up to chase them around to get ready on Sunday morning by saying “get up, we are going to church!”. I hate that we invest so much time and money and effort into an hour long weekly meeting and so little time and money and effort into taking Christ to the lost who are never going to come into one of our tidy, neat buildings full of smiling people in their Sunday best.

I hate that the phrase has made “church” synonymous with the building used to meet with other Christians instead of being synonymous with all of God’s people everywhere. I hate that “church” is an event in our week instead of a present reality of who we are. I hate that we dress up and put on a happy face because we are going to church instead of being able to interact with other believers as we really are, sharing our burdens with one another so that we can lift up and minister to each other.

There might be no other phrase that culturally, succinctly captures what is wrong in the church. In fact I think we should ban that phrase entirely.

I love the church.

I hate going to church.