How Important is Meeting Together?
It’s been quite the year, hasn’t it? We are facing curve balls on every side. But, at some point, the show must go on, and the churches must meet. Speaking of churches meeting, how important is that, anyway? Here are a few considerations for us to think about during the last month of the weirdest year ever.
Meeting together is what god commandS.
Believe it or not, God-fearing Christians fall on various sides of many things 2020. Why is that? Ultimately, it’s because God’s word simply isn’t equally clear on everything. Regardless of what Christians think the Bible has to say about COVID-19, masks, vaccines, elections, and whatever else this year from purgatory can throw our way, we hope every Christian can agree that God puts a premium on us meeting together. It’s crystal clear, and it’s all over the Bible. Aside from implicit references (such as Matt 18:20 and Rev 2:1) and explicit commands (such as 1 Cor 11:33 and Heb 10:25), it is assumed everywhere in the New Testament epistles, which were publicly addressed and read to these very gatherings. In confusing times like these, we cannot afford to forsake the most important matters of our faith.
Meeting together is whO we are.
The reason the command to gather is so clear in the Bible is because the gathering is literally what the church is. The Greek word behind our “church” is ekklesia, which means assembly. On Sunday morning we are the church. In fact, the church is the only reason the world still turns. And revolution 2020 (or what’s left of it) needs nothing more than Christians standing together as the church in unity of purpose and resolve to worship God openly, through Jesus Christ, come what may. Without church, there is no church. Therefore, every church has to figure this out for themselves or cease to exist. Lord help us!
Meeting together is where things are different.
Corporate worship is governed differently than the rest of our lives. It is more immediately governed by Christ, whose power is present in a unique way when we gather (1 Cor 5:4). He binds us together in the main things while allowing us to maintain our own convictions in our lives. This unique space allows us to work through strange problems and seek God’s wisdom in strange times. As we go through these growing pains (or birth pangs!), we must be prepared to bear with one another. We—at least those of us who haven’t found the perfect church yet—must be prepared to make wise compromises in order to protect what matters most. This is nothing new. At God’s glorious churches, messy sinners have always laid aside their many differences and convictions in order to fellowship, to pray, to sing, to hear, and to eat and drink the Lord’s death until he comes.