The Church Shop and Hop

Going to Church is considered a normal part of a religious person from any background. Or even if you’re not religious, going to church on a major holiday isn’t weird. The term “creaster” comes from mashing “Christmas” and “Easter” in to one word that is used to describe people who attend church twice a year for the biggest traditional religious holidays. Church attendance is highly subjective and in every group of people, a wide variety of views will come to light if the subject of attendance is brought up. Some of the responses range from the avid churchgoers who are present at every Wednesday and Sunday service and Bible study, to the people who go once in a while, try this church, try that church, and so on. It’s a hard topic to establish a moral baseline for because what we find in Scripture tells us in Hebrews 25:19–25 still leaves a lot of grey zones in the equation of church attendance:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

As you can see, several things are in bold and I’d like to elaborate on them.

First, it is an honor to attend church. We can only be part of this community because Jesus bought us that right with His holy blood, and we are made worthy to enter God’s most holy place with confidence- an incredible privilege.

Second, going to church is a special way to draw near to God. His people are gathered together and by communing with other followers of God, we are growing nearer to God’s heart and relishing His presence in a public and communal way.

Third, life is hard. People don’t believe the same things we do about eternal life, or sin, or morality. It’s hard to stand alone and even the holiest calling can become discouraging if you are alone in your conviction. And so, we can better hold unswervingly to the hope we profess if we have teammates striding toward the same end as us. Ecclesiastes 4:10 deliberates on this principle, saying, “two are better than one, because they have good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity the one who falls and has no one to help him up.” This slides right into my fourth points.

Fourthly, we can spur each other on. Not only do we need company on this long journey of life, we need accountability when we get sloppy or lazy. We can better ourselves when we surround ourselves with people who can rebuke and encourage us to proceed, improve, and keep our eyes on the prize.

Lastly, encouragement. We know that persecution will abound in the last days and that times will grow harder as opposition increases. A lot of Christians believe we are in the end times and whether that is true or not, we are all aware of the distaste we cause in the mouths of others. We need to be encouraging each other specifically because of the opposition that stands against us.

And so, with all that said, what of these trends of “church hopping” and “church shopping?”

I haven’t much to say about church shopping, because, you need to taste the waters from which you’ll be drinking. You need to test out a church for a few weeks to see if it’s a place you want to be your home. Just as if you buy a home, you don’t purchase the first home you see on your google search. You look at multiple homes. You walk inside. You open things. You investigate if there are any registered sex offenders on your block. So yes, go church shopping. Examine the churches but don’t be unrealistic. This is earth. It’s not a perfect place. Just like when you buy a home, you don’t take a magnifying glass to the corners to make sure there is no dirt. You don’t take the drawers out of their slots and flip them over to make sure you like the underside of the drawer. You don’t get offended if the doorknobs aren’t everything you’ve ever hoped for and dreamed of because you can just replace them. So when you church shop, be realistic. Know that it’s an organization established by humans and they have dirt in their corners, that The underside of their drawers might be unpolished, that their doorknobs have been doing a service around them for a long time and might have seen better days.

Now on to church hopping. There are people I respect who believe that once you are a member of a church, that is your church body and if they go down, you go down. It’s all for one and one for all. You don’t leave if your kids are the only children in the church. You don’t leave if the pastor has an immoral relationship with a mistress. You don’t leave if everyone in the body is eighty five and you’re in your twenties and feeling very isolated.

I am sure many I care deeply for would be very unsupportive of my view that you can change churches if it seems wise, but that’s my stance on it. Sometimes, a church body becomes toxic, and if you aren’t in a position to change or influence that situation, it is your right to leave and seek out a body that is pursuing God. Attending church is not a marital covenant. It is a community.

Sometimes this desire to seek out a body that is pursuing God can be taken too far, though. I know several people who bounced around in churches for years before ultimately claiming their church community as their house church and getting dressed up on Sunday mornings for a sermon given by the father in their living room. They claimed dissatisfaction with the system of church and that they were discouraged by the churches they had attended and that they wanted to seek God in a less diluted way. To this, I say, stop looking in the corners and underneath the drawers. Churches are human institutions. They are not perfect and neither are you. Also, what is the common denominator between all the churches and the family who bounces between them for years, always claiming that the church was not after God’s heart? People who do look for a church without flaw are looking for heaven on earth. Pick a community and love them. But if it becomes toxic for reasons such as unrepentant sin, irrelevance to your family after plenty of effort to connect and integrate, misalignment to God’s designs (keeping it reasonable- not digging in the corners and flipping the drawers!), your feet are not glued to the floor.

So go, seek, commit, and do your best as long as you can. And if you need to change churches, do so calculatively, and do so kindly.