At times it’s been a challenge, but I’ve tried to remain apolitical in this column. If I’m going to alienate any readers, I want it to be over something more eternally significant than politics.
What I’m about to write isn’t politically motivated, but if you don’t believe me, I suppose that will have to be okay. I’m diving in anyway.
A niggling burr was placed under my proverbial saddle over Easter weekend when I heard and read news stories about how Easter was the first time President Obama attended church since moving into the White House.
Okay, I know things have been busy for the president. Huge bailout checks to write, dictators to schmooze and all that, but it’s hard for me to understand how a purported “man of faith” can ignore going to church for so long.
Presidential aides, ever scrambling to spin excuses, say the Obamas are “looking for a church to attend.” Hmmmm…seems to me like it’s easier to find a church if one actually gets out and visits a few.
Why is this a big deal to me? Because it bothers me when anyone appears to use Christianity to gain favor and then seems to stuff their alleged “faith” in a closet once it has helped them get what they want.
“But,” you may argue, “is going to church a good measure of faith?”
Certainly, going to church doesn’t make a person a Christian. I can sit in my garage all day and it won’t make me a car.
But people who have genuinely experienced the transforming power of Jesus Christ in their hearts and lives do want to regularly get together with other folks who have also genuinely experienced that transformation.
For them, church is like the best family, club, team, army, and support group – all wrapped up into one. Imperfect? Oh, yea. Important nonetheless? Very.
The Apostle Paul used the human body as a metaphor for the church, saying that every part is significant, intertwined and interdependent. When one part of the body isn’t functioning properly, it affects all the parts. When one part is missing, all suffer.
Involvement in a local church isn’t optional for a Christian. It’s not like visiting a movie theatre—sporadic, passive and impersonal —but is instead a deep and serious commitment to walk with God shoulder to shoulder alongside others who share that passion.
Believers should anticipate attending church like we would a party we’ve put on our calendars and looked forward to all week. Some of our favorite people will be there and we can’t wait to join them as we honor our very special host, Jesus Christ. He has a wonderful way of blessing those who come to His house with expectant, consistent and engaged hearts.
The president’s church attendance shouldn’t be newsworthy; it should be assumed, given his public statements of faith. Being a Christian is certainly about more than going to church, but that doesn’t make going to church insignificant.
Can’t we worship privately on the golf course, in the woods, at the lake, in the White House? Absolutely! God is worthy of worship all the time, in every corner of the universe! But, as He instructs in His Word: “…let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)