5 Great (and 5 Terrible) Reasons to Attend Church Weekly

Great Reason #1: Spiritual Growth

Regularly participating in worship services, sermons, and fellowship deepens our Scriptural understanding, helps us hear God’s voice more clearly, and cultivates our relationship with the Father. Actively engaging in church activities provides avenues for learning, reflection, and spiritual enrichment.

A key event for the early church in Acts was hearing and putting into practice the apostle’s teachings. The New Testament, and to a large degree the whole Bible we possess, is based on apostolic doctrine.

Before Jesus ascended after his resurrection, he gave his disciples the Great Commission. In Matthew 28, he instructs these apostles to bring the Gospel to all creatures and make disciples of all people in partnership with God’s Spirit. Jesus qualifies discipleship: “teaching them to do all I’ve commanded you.” The early church believed Jesus gave the apostles the job of passing on Christ’s teachings. We call this apostolic doctrine.

Meeting regularly for church centers around continuing this mission: passing on Jesus’ teachings through the Scripture, and the gifts of the Body. These teachings are life. They bring us to greater faith and grace.

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Great Reason #2: Faith Community

We are God’s family. And we should meet with family.

Every human has been created in God’s image, but not every person is a child of God. We are born again from the Spirit by participating in the gifts of faith and repentance. We are now in Christ, and God becomes our Father.

Every believer is now our brother and sister. Not only the ones we know but also other disciples worldwide and throughout history. We can’t meet with every believer worldwide or throughout history, so we gather with saints locally. The local church structure models the family.

Our blood families are important, and God cares about them. However, we won’t be married or parents in heaven. My wife and children, if born again, will also be direct children of God. We’ll be fellow brothers and sisters.

God’s family, meeting weekly with the local church, offers belonging, support, and encouragement in our common spiritual journey. Not only spiritual but also emotional and physical support and encouragement, just as a healthy family should.

Like our physical family, we don’t get to choose our brothers and sisters, to some degree. It’s not about whether we like them or not. It’s about love.

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Great Reason #3: Guidance and Accountability

Within the church family, we find resources to navigate life’s challenges and grow in our faith.

First, we have the opportunity for guidance from mentors and spiritual leaders. The Scripture even calls these people fathers in the faith. Through pastoral care and relationship, church leaders offer insights, wisdom, and encouragement from Scripture and their experience with God to help us apply biblical principles.

We also find accountability. Gathering regularly, whether weekly or more often, is crucial. While online resources can help greatly, they can’t replace the importance and benefits of regular face-to-face relationships and guidance. We commit to walk alongside one another in life like a family. We hold each other accountable to live according to Christ’s teachings. This includes both general fellowship and friendship, but also participating in spiritual disciplines (prayer, praise, Bible study, and service) as a community.

Finally, the church family is a support network during times of temptation, struggle, or spiritual dryness. Fellow believers offer their presence, prayer, encouragement, and practical assistance to help each other stay faithful and persevere through difficulties.

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Great Reason #4: Service Opportunities

Gathering with God’s family offers abundant opportunities to actively fulfill the church's mission and serve others in the community.

Initially, the most important resource we can offer is our friendship and relationship, as others do for us. The church isn’t a building, an organization, or a religious activity but the people. First and foremost, we focus on relationships with others as brothers and sisters.

Beyond making friends, coming to the faith community brings many service opportunities. We’ve been given a spiritual gift, and we must find a way to discover and use it within the local church. We can make a positive impact by volunteering in ministries such as music teams and hospitality. Outreach initiatives and community service projects are numerous avenues to use our gifts and talents outside the church.

These allow us to express our love for God and others in tangible ways, providing the joy and fulfillment from selflessly giving ourselves to others. Love, truth, and hope become more real and evident in action, growing our faith and Christ-like character. Further, church and community service activities foster unity and camaraderie among believers. Serving together creates deeper relational bonds and fellowship as we work toward common goals and share the joy of making a difference.

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Great Reason #5: Sense of Purpose and Meaning

All people need two things: intimacy and purpose. As the design in the Garden of Eden revealed, God provided intimacy with himself and each other (Adam and Eve) and a purpose to bring the earth under dominion through multiplication.

Along with family intimacy, our regular gathering with the church helps us develop a sense of purpose and meaning, providing a deeper understanding of our significance in God’s plan.

By using our spiritual gifts and serving others, we grow in our faith, and God opens doors for us to continue. He’s a good Father, so he has plans and designs for us.

Ephesians 2:8-9 famously declares we’ve been saved by grace through faith, not our works. But Paul doesn’t stop there. He tells us we’ve been saved for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us.

Through spiritual discipline, commitment, and faithfulness, God faithfully leads us to those “good works” he’s already planned for us. We can’t manufacture them. They already exist in God’s mind and redemptive plan. We discover them through our relationship with God and the Body of Christ. We were born again for these eternal purposes in this life and the next.

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Terrible Reason #1: Legalism

There are also terrible reasons to go to church.

Attending church solely from legalism or religious obligation negates what worship and fellowship are truly for. When attendance becomes a duty to fulfill rather than a heartfelt desire to connect with God and fellow believers, spiritual vitality and authenticity are compromised.

Legalistic attendance fosters a superficial relationship with God and others. Instead of worshiping and communing with God in love and devotion, we approach church as a mere ritual with no genuine spiritual intimacy.

Attending from obligation promotes a performance-based mentality. We become more concerned with outward appearances and following religious standards than with cultivating a genuine, grace- and love-based relationship with God. This performance-based mindset, thinking our abilities save us, breeds judgmentalism and self-righteousness: we look down on others who don’t meet our standards. Legalism fosters division and hypocrisy, making the church a bad witness to the world.

Finally, since a genuine relationship with God isn’t the focus, we become lonely and isolated in our hearts. We don’t discover God’s purpose for us, the good works he wants to lead us to which will satisfy our souls. Under legalism’s lie, we become frustrated, bitter, and lost.

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Terrible Reason #2: Personal Profit

People gather at church—some people with money. We fail when we think church is a way to get people’s cash. When we approach God’s family for personal gain, we undermine some of our faith’s core values: service, humility, and compassion. It also contradicts selflessness and sacrificial love, the Gospel’s very power. God has given us resources to give others.

Prioritizing personal profit in church attendance creates a consumeristic mentality. We view the church as a marketplace for goods or services rather than a community of believers united in worship and fellowship. This diminishes the sense of spiritual purpose and connection within the church. Attendance becomes a transactional relationship.

Attending a church for personal profit fosters a shallow and superficial understanding of faith. We also miss out on God’s deeper spiritual truths and transformative power, limiting or diminishing growth and maturity in Christ.

Finally, focusing on personal profit in the church leads to exploiting and manipulating resources meant for other’s good. We selfishly use the church and its members rather than seek their improvement and the community’s well-being. God takes this seriously, as we see with Jesus overturning the moneychangers’ tables in the Temple.

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Terrible Reason #3: Personal Recognition

A crowd provides not just an opportunity for money, but for fame and recognition. This is misguided and detrimental for several reasons. It perverts worship’s true purpose. Only God is worthy of worship. But seeking our own fame over coming together to honor and glorify God, prioritizes our egos, undermining the humility essential for pure worship.

Seeking recognition produces a competitive, self-centered mindset. We behave driven by pride and vanity rather than genuine love and service to God and fellow believers. This creates a toxic and divisive atmosphere within the church family. We vie for leadership positions, leading to conflicts, jealousy, and discord, the opposite of the unity God desires.

When individuals are motivated by a desire for applause or validation from others, they may neglect the inner transformation and character development necessary for authentic discipleship. Further, our pride undermines our relationship with God. Instead of seeking God’s approval and acceptance, individuals may prioritize the approval of others, placing their identity and worth in human accolades rather than in Christ.

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Terrible Reason #4: Expecting Immediate Solutions

Most of us come to God because we’ve humbly realized our sins and weakness. Of course, this is good. At the same time, our weaknesses lead to different problems and conflicts, whether emotional, financial, or physical. We often expect immediate solutions to all our problems from this all-powerful God.

Attending church with this expectation is misguided and unrealistic, overlooking the local church family’s true purposes: worshipping God, building community, serving others, and growing in faith. While church can and should offer support, guidance, and prayer, it’s not a quick-fix solution center for personal issues.

Unfulfilled expectation leads to disappointment and disillusionment. With this discouragement, we feel frustrated with the church community and God. Expecting God to fix all our problems magically fosters a passive approach to addressing challenges. Our salvation depends upon repentance, and while God and the church immediately accept us, he leads us in a process of change. Many times, that’s a journey across time, not an immediate fix.

This includes practical measures. Instead of proactively seeking other resources for help, guidance, and support, we may rely solely on the church. The church can help, but we must neglect other avenues for healing and growth like counseling or education.

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Terrible Reason #5: Social Pressure

Friends or family might pressure people to attend church. They may have good motives, but God isn’t about force or obligation. We should participate in God’s family from an understanding of God’s ways.

Giving into social pressure undermines the authenticity of our faith journey. When we attend church solely to avoid judgment or criticism from others, our motives are not aligned with genuine faith and devotion to God. Succumbing to social pressure can lead to a shallow and superficial experience of worship and fellowship. Instead of engaging wholeheartedly, we go through the motions, lacking true spiritual engagement and connection.

Social obligation can dissolve into insincerity. We present ourselves as churchgoers to others while harboring doubts or disbelief in our hearts. This compromises our integrity and authenticity, leading to inner conflict. We feel disconnected, and others never truly know us. Further, we hinder personal growth and spiritual development, missing genuine introspection, growth, and transformation opportunities.

The participation-by-social-pressure model creates conformity and compliance. People in masks stifle creativity, individuality, and genuine expressions of faith. God desires the opposite. Our faith community should practice love, diversity, and acceptance.

We must all examine our own hearts about church attendance. Are we going for selfish reasons? Do we have unrealistic expectations? In our desperation, we may feel we need these things. Participating in God’s family with the right motives and mindset (to give, serve, and love) might not seem profitable initially. However, we gain internal and eternal rewards. We are molded into the life of Christ, and he works all things out for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

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