"I don't want to go to church"

Lessons from a PK (Pastor's Kid)

I remember when I was younger, probably most strongly in middle school, when there came a point that I just didn't want to go to church.

At that time we were having church in a bar in Austin, TX (there's always a place for Jesus) and I remember sitting in the way back just wanting to read my book or just be back in kids ministry because I just wasn't interested.

I should mention here that my dad was the pastor.

Around that time Jeff Bethke came out with his YouTube video "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus." A spoken word (half poem-half rap usually about Jesus or Christianity) where he talked about how with religion there are so many more rules and legalistic commands versus how he believed Jesus came to the world which was with grace and love, enough to die on a cross for our sins. So I, if I remember correctly, shared it on my Facebook wall and was like, "that's exactly what I believe, this guy gets it" and it was also going around to a lot of other teens at the time. It was something new that people latched onto as another way to fight "the man" (us Christians, always trying to "fight the man," *insert eye role*).

But I think in some ways, actually in a lot of ways, it was a cop out. This idea of having just Jesus who I loved, but without this place that I didn't, seemed pretty great to me. I didn't get the point of church and I agreed with the lines in his video about the horrendous hypocrisies of the Christian church and of all the trouble that it had caused for everyone involved.

However, I also remember watching around that time a follow up video by Bethke and him explaining himself a bit more and how he loved the church for what it could be and what Jesus made it to be, but other religions and Christianity as a "religion" was a problem. His point was that he wanted to see a greater level of authenticity in the church.

As a kid I didn't care or understand any of what was really going on. I just knew he had a really cool video. And as I got older and now that I've been a pastor's kid for 21 (almost) years now, I've started to, learn more, shocker, and have a greater appreciation for the church and its purpose.

"Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Ephesians 2:20-22 ESV

So first off, we as the Body of Christ are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. He lives in us as individuals and uses us as the Church to minister to people. But our main focus and in this verse is Jesus as the cornerstone for it all and without Him we fail.

So let's go to the purposes of the church so you can see where I began to realize why the church was a place that I needed to be a part of.

‭‭Acts‬ ‭2:42‬

So what we can get from this verse is a couple main things that the church is to do: 1. Always be teaching biblical doctrine, 2. Give a place for people to fellowship and worship, 3. Observe communion and though not mentioned in this verse, baptism as well, and 4. Pray unceasingly.

The coolest thing about this is that my dad and his church (really it's Jesus', but he does a good job at shepherding his designated flock) seeks to follow all of these in a way that is as close to what Christ commanded as possible. Every week my dad teaches right out of the text and instead of a devotional and some special word like faith or commitment, he digs deep into scripture and what it means and what God intended for us to learn from it. There is always worship before and after he preaches and people are able to fellowship together both on Sunday mornings and during the week at small groups. We take communion as a church at every Sunday service. It's in remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice and while I know of some churches who only will take it once a month, it's something that isn't just something we should think about once a month, but every day. Christ died so that we may live. And baptism is so that we can say that we know and believe that and our entire community can be a witness to that. And finally pray. My dad takes his job very seriously and he and his elders meet together every week to pray for the people of the church for usually up to an hour because the role of pastors is to take care of the people they're entrusted with.

The purpose of a church is to maintain a community. A community that will be unified for Christ and be able to lift each other up so that when we face trials and persecution (and they are growing every day) we will have men and women to fight with us as we go into battle against the enemy because the biggest lie we could tell ourselves is that we're supposed to fight each other and against topics of the world that matter less than eternal salvation.

It's hard to wake up early on a Sunday and go to church, but it's something that God gave us to be blessing and a source of joy. So while there are problems they're never going to get fixed if you're staying home and ignoring them.

Go to church. You'll be surprised by what God does.