Really don’t wanna go to church.

There’s a guy whose blog I’ve followed for years. Not so much anymore; since about 2010 or so, he’s really been telling his readers, and anyone else who might listen, to quit their churches. Stop going, he says. Just stop. Stay home. You’ll be a lot happier.

And I get it. There were times in my life where I didn’t wanna go to church either. For the usual excuses.

SLEEP! What moron decided church services should happen first thing in the morning on our day off? I’m not a morning person; I don’t like anything first thing in the morning; not work, not school, not even breakfast. Give me an evening service.

CHAPEL COUNTS, RIGHT? I went to a Christian college, which had daily chapel services. Every morning, 25 minutes of worship songs, 25 of preaching. (Sometimes more music, sometimes more preaching.) A week’s worth of chapel provides plenty of both those things… so why go to a church service to get more? That became my excuse for skipping church for a semester. Me and a lot of other students.

I’M OUT OF TOWN. The other excuse that semester was I already have a church… 100 miles away, and impractical to visit every Sunday. And since I have a church, why visit some other church? So I used this reason to ditch all the nearby churches, none of which I cared for. And I did go to church whenever I went back home on college breaks. But while I was at school, I figured it was okay to miss 10 weeks of services.

DON’T GOTTA GO EVERY WEEK. Which… is actually true. If you’re in leadership, and I often am, you’re obligated to be there weekly. If not, you can miss a Sunday here and there. Now, when I was in my don’t-wanna-go phase, it wasn’t just here and there; it was a lot. And I know a number of Christians who only attend once a month; and of course there are twice-a-year Christians who only visit Easter and Christmas. If that; sometimes they just watch the Easter and Christmas services on YouTube.

WE HAVE FREEDOM IN CHRIST! In context, the passage about freedom of conscience Ro 14 is about looking out for weaker Christians, not the freedom to be irresponsible. But as you’re well aware, irresponsible Christians don’t give a rip about context.

I CAN DO THIS ON MY OWN, Y’KNOW. In my late teens I had grown really annoyed with the people of my church, so this was my excuse for a few weeks. ’Cause we totally can do a lot of this stuff on our own.

• Pray?—no problem.
• Sing worship songs?—easily done.
• Learn from fellow Christians?—I have Christian books. Nowadays I have the internet. There’s no shortage of Christian content.
• Study the bible?—okay, I got a study bible.
• Tithing? Well kinda. I could donate money to myself for “religious” expenses. Or I could give money to charity. Or I could spend all of it at a Peets one afternoon while I sit there reading some Christian book; wouldn’t that totally count?
• Take holy communion? Um… I could eat saltines and grape juice on my own, and call it communion. Problem is, the vital element in communion is, y’know, actual communion with fellow Christians. So that makes it tricky.

Same as all our other rituals which require the participation of fellow Christians. Plus evangelism: Once you share Jesus with someone, where do you take ’em so they can be taught Christianity and mentored? Well I could do it by myself… but that’d mean I’m starting a church, right?

There are plenty more excuses out there. Some of them get pretty complex, and as a result they kinda merit whole articles, because it takes a little time to take these excuses apart. But for plenty of Christians, any excuse will do. They simply don’t wanna go. So they don’t.

People suck.

Probably the biggest, most common excuse is people suck. That’s the excuse of the blogger I mentioned up top: People suck. When he goes to church, he’s surrounded by a bunch of Christian nationalists who are more interested in perpetuating their politics than in growing God’s kingdom. Who are too busy judging their neighbors to love them. Who are too fixated on money to really worship Jesus. Whose leadership is more into self-promotion than kingdom promotion.

A few years ago we went through the Covid-19 pandemic. Christians had the perfect opportunity to take the lead at ministering to the sick, needy, and scared; it’s one of the marks of Jesus’s true followers. Mk 16.18 But instead we saw way too many American Evangelicals at the forefront of denying there was any problem at all, and treating healthcare workers and government ministers as if they were only here to hurt instead of help. (’Cause that narrative fits hand in glove with their fearful politics. Not the gospel, but they’re in denial about that too.) In so doing, these churches revealed they really don’t know Jesus’s teachings as well as they claim. And the Christians who discovered how truly ungodly their leaders and fellow church members were… well, why on earth would you stay in that church, right? So they left, and aren’t coming back.

In more recent years, people have chosen to turn to political extremes, and of course these aren’t good extremes. They’re not more fruitful; they’re more partisan. Christians gradually found themselves in a church which doesn’t preach the gospel at all; it’s a Christianist sect promoting one movement or another. So they left those churches too.

In general, the problem is Christians are people, and people are awful.

’Cause we’re sinners! Even the best Christians sin. Much as we try to be loving and kind, many times we’re unloving and unkind. And some of us, to be blunt, aren’t even trying. They figure since they don’t need to be good people in order to be saved, they won’t bother to try to be good people at all. Even though goodness is a fruit of the Spirit; even though God wants his kids to not sin. They’re just the same jerks they were as pagans, and have relabeled all their unkindness as “tough love”—“I’m just keeping it real. I’m telling it like it is. It’s brutal honesty.” Nah; it’s just brutality, and they’re trying to pass it off as Christian.

Fr’instance: An unmarried couple visit the church on the very morning the pastor decides to preach, with great fervency and conviction, against non-marital sex. Not along the lines of “Stop avoiding commitment and get married already,” but “You’re nasty, horny sinners and you’re arrogantly defying God.” This couple, who don’t feel they’re defying God—they’re in church!—aren’t convinced. (Didn’t help that the preacher was preaching more from his spleen than the scriptures.) Plus they feel their sex life is none of Pastor’s buisness. So they won’t return. And Pastor isn’t happy about that… but feels entirely justified for how his sermon drove ’em off, because he was just “telling it like it is.”

Another instance. A young man visits a church, hoping to meet new Christians. For whatever reason, nobody interacts with him beyond superficial greetings. They say hi. Then they turn round and have longer, more meaningful conversations with their existing cliques. The man realizes they’re not all that welcoming, so he leaves, figuring he won’t be missed. He’s right.

And another. A woman attends a church, which encourages her to plug into their ministries: The women’s ministry, several bible studies, some church outreaches. She discovers something disconcerting: Every single function has expenses. You gotta buy books. You gotta get tickets for seminars and conferences and concerts and retreats. The women like to go to lunch afterward, and all their favorite restaurants aren’t cheap! This newcomer isn’t middle-class; she can’t afford this church’s lifestyle. She’d certainly like to. She shares this problem to the prayer team, and rather than offer help, the church folks say, “Y’know, you need a better job. We’ll pray for that.” She begins to resent all these folks who have no truly pressing needs, who can’t relate to her world. She gives up on them.

Yet another. A die-hard Republican visits a church. As part of the usual prayers, the vicar calls upon the congregation to pray for the president, who’s a Democrat. The Republican is outraged: He doesn’t wanna pray for this president! If anything, he wants to pray against him, Psalm 109 style. What kind of liberal church is this? He won’t be back.

Or everybody in the church is wonderful, but one day you unintentionally say the wrong thing to this one woman, and she loses her cool and just reads you the riot act. Says some really hurtful things. And nobody rebukes her. Or they do, but their rebukes are pathetic; they really just let her get away with it. Well, how could you ever return to that church?

Or a very devout person discovers the pastor went to see a certain R-rated movie. And he’s horrified. How could pastors watch such filth? What kind of hypocrisy do we have in the church’s leadership? How could such a person teach his children? He won’t be back.

Y’see, experiences vary. All those scenarios I mentioned: I’ve either personally witnessed or experienced them. You can probably think of more. People are offended by all sorts of things. Doesn’t even have to be a huge thing. Little things, stuff we overlook, are the devil’s favorite things to burrow under people’s skin like a sliver next to a nerve ending, and drive Christians away from fellow Christians. Little things which utterly escape our notice, but enrage people, who now aren’t coming back.

Yep, sometimes it’s their issue, and sometimes ours. Sometimes it’s their fault, and sometimes ours. We can only control our own actions, so we need to pay attention: Are we alienating others? How do we avoid this? Are we being kind to people?—kind enough so they recognize our good intentions, and are more likely to forgive us? Or do we figure being correct is more important than being like Jesus?

The church is its people, and when the people of a church clearly aren’t following Jesus any, don’t go to that church! It’s okay to leave! But then you go to another one.

Now that’s not the tack my church-rejecting blogger has taken. He figures there’s no point in looking for another church. He’s staying home. He says we oughta stay home—and just follow Jesus on our own, all alone, like Christian hermits. Don’t bother to find iron to sharpen iron; Pr 27.17 let the Holy Spirit do all the sharpening.

Thing is, as I’ve said more than once, how do we know the Holy Spirit is telling us anything? Confirmation. Which requires other people. Namely the other people of our church.

There’s a reason the ancient Christians made “the communion of saints” part of the Apostles Creed and their other creeds: Going it alone doesn’t work. It turns us heretic. Yeah, it may take a few weeks or months before we really get off track, but derailment is inevitable. For the very same reason these go-it-alone Christians figure they left those other churches: Because people suck. And we’re people. We aren’t some magical exception to the “people suck” rule: We suck too. We all do. It’s why we need Jesus! And the support of other people who are likewise recognize we need Jesus, and are making the effort to follow him.

Why I still go to church.

There are three reasons to go to church. Maybe not the church you’re in; maybe you do need to leave. But you oughta be in some church, and here’s why I go.

IT’S JESUS’S CHURCH. Mt 16.18 The church was Jesus’s idea. We may not like the way Christians run individual churches, and for very good reason. People are different, and some of us prefer different focal points in our churches. If you insist on good worship music, go find a church which emphasizes it too. If you insist on thoughtful, scholarly sermons, go find a church with that kind of preacher. If you need holy communion every single service, go find a church which does that. Jesus doesn’t have only one type of church! Find one which ministers to you best.

Sometimes we dislike a church because its leaders are horribly botching the job. But all this means is we oughtn’t go to these churches. We still need to go to some church, and they don’t all suck. Find one that doesn’t suck. Go to that one.

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” Jn 13.34, 15.12 Really hard to love one another when you intentionally avoid one another. Really hard to minister to fellow Christians, to lead fellow Christians, when you reject all of the organizations they’ve joined. No it’s not impossible, but… well, go to the next reason.

GO-IT-ALONE CHRISTIANITY IS HERESY. Like the creeds say, “I believe in the communion of saints.” If you don’t believe in the communion of saints, and reject it, you’re heretic. Period.

Fellow Christians are a corrective. They’re meant to keep us on the right path. Yeah, they can get cultish and political, and use peer pressure to steer people wrong instead of right. Like I said, leave those churches. But this behavior is hardly true of all churches.

And you’ve seen how go-it-alone Christians regularly get all warped. It’ll happen to you too. Always does. Always. Notice every time a go-it-alone Christian tries to instruct or help or minister to fellow Christians: It’s always in some weird, fruitless manner—’cause they’re avoiding a proper Christian environment where they can practice the Spirit’s fruit with one another.

When my fellow Christians preach or write about the biblical or theological reasons for going to church, they tend to always come right back to those three reasons. They’re making it sound more complicated than it really is. Jesus’s church; love one another; communion of saints. There y’go.

Vacation from church.

Every so often people ask me whether it’s okay to take a break from church—to stop going for a few weeks, and take a “vacation.”

Some Christians don’t ask; they just do it. Every August, certain families vanish from my church. Some of ’em are visiting family, traveling, or spending their weekends camping or hunting. And some of ’em, as we can see by their Facebook pages, are simply staying home for a few weeks. They come back in September. They just wanted some time off.

I get it. ’Cause much as we might love our families, or job, or activities, sometimes we need a break. Nothing wrong with taking a sabbatical.

I used to consider it a sign of a deeper problem. Churches are supposed to be our support system—and if you need a break from your support system, maybe there’s something wrong with it. Y’know, like a person saying, “I’m really tired of food; think I’ll take a month and not eat any.” We shouldn’t want to do without church. Right? Church should be so awesome, where we don’t want a vacation from it.

But the reality is people are hard. Jesus took breaks from ministry too, y’know. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a vacation from church. (Especially when you go to one of those churches with programs for every night of the week. It’s so easy to burn out at one of these churches.) So if you need one, take one.

Just be sure to come back! There are those Christians who are so tired of their churches, and after two Sunday mornings of sleeping in like a pagan, they never wanna return. I get that. But like I said above: Jesus’s church; love one another; communion of saints. We need church. Go back.

(Unless spending time off made you discover your church is seriously dysfunctional. Then go find another church.)