bored_in_church  According to the Barna Research Group, in the 1990s, 30% of the American population never (or almost never) went to church. As of January, 2015, that percentage had risen to 43%.

[See http://tinyurl.com/o95lrf9] What is going on? Why are so many people staying away from church?

   In order to find an answer to that question, thousands of Millennials (those born between 1982 and 1997) were surveyed in 2013. Here are the top four reasons given for avoiding church attendance: 39% said they could find God elsewhere, 35% said that church wasn’t relevant to them, 31% simply said that church was boring, and 20% said that it feels like God is missing from church. (In filling out the survey, each person could list more than one reason for not attending).

   In other words, the unchurched don’t see any good reason for going to church. Maybe you attended church for a while. Since it didn’t seem to make your life any better, you stopped going. Perhaps you have even asked yourself, What is the point of going to church, anyway?

   Let me be the first to say that, depending on the church, those reasons could be very good ones for NOT going to church. The Bible agrees.

   In Colossians 2:8 we are given four things that will make going to church a waste of time. Maybe you have experienced one or more of them. The first is human philosophy. Many churches are just echoing what you can learn elsewhere. For example: they may talk about how can you feel good about yourself, how can you improve your self-image, how can you enjoy life more, how can you make more friends, etc.

   Another reason to avoid some churches is their “empty deception.” The first thing that comes to my mind is the slick sales pitch that some religious leaders use. Some of them say that if you give them money, God will give you a lot of money back. That con may make a religious organization rich, but it won’t help anyone discover God’s peace and forgiveness.

   That same verse also talks about “the tradition of men.” If a religion consists of routines and ceremonies invented by other people, how can we know if it’s any better than our own ideas about how to get close to God? Those religious people are human, just like us. What makes their ideas superior to our own?

   Lastly, Colossians 2:8 mentions “the elementary principles of the world.” A few verses later Paul explains more about what this means. (I’m using the Amplified Version because it makes the meaning very clear.) Some churches use the world’s way of thinking, such as “… material ways of looking at things” and has “… crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism” like “… Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them]…. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines. Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh]” (Colossians 2:20–23).

   Now that we have seen some things that can make worship meaningless, let’s look at how worship can have real excitement.

   Real, meaningful worship MUST begin with this truth: worship that is worthwhile is NOT about us. It is about glorifying God.

   Here is a story to illustrate what I mean. Imagine that you were invited to a birthday party for your mother. After the party, you started thinking about how boring it was. The cake wasn’t your favorite; they didn’t play your kind of music; and the party lasted longer than you wanted. What you had ignored, though, was that your mother loved every moment of it. If you really loved your mother, then you would love the party because she loved it. After all, the party was for her, not for you.

   Worship at church will be exciting, too, if you are learning about and praising the Lord you love dearly. Do you need a good reason to love Him? Paul gives us the very best reason to love Jesus. Jesus is willing to give real life to those who want to be free from the sin that traps them: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins…But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved…” (Ephesians 2:1, 4–5).

   If you have trusted Christ’s offer of free and full forgiveness for your sins, then He has also adopted you into a family relationship with Him! (See Romans 8:15 and Ephesians 1:5) Loving and worshiping Jesus is a natural response to His love for us. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

   If you really love Jesus, then you will really love worshiping Him. If you don’t have a place to do that, please join us at Bethel Chapel Church. We aren’t a perfect church, but we do love Jesus. We enjoy learning about Him together!