How often do you talk about Jesus?
I’m not talking about a quick “Jesus loves you.” I’m not even talking about you’re “Thank you, Jesus!” when you passed that police officer speeding and didn’t get a ticket.
I’m talking about a real, in-depth conversation about your faith… a thirty-minute, uncomfortable, but necessary conversation about the things you need to address, change, and be encouraged within your faith.
It’s probably been a while.
We don’t have a lot of forced conversations that come from different perspectives. Most of us engage in conversation that is comfortable and stays pretty much in the field of our point-of-view. We’re not creatures that generally seek out a challenge.
But… we need to be challenged.
We all-too-often live our lives practically trying to pursue comfort. We want a more comfortable financial situation, we want a bigger home, a nicer bed, or a newer car. We work long hours and extra days to afford such.
Comfort never created meaning.
We want a social-media-worthy life, but that type of life isn’t what cultivates meaning in our lives. Comfort creates complacency. When we’re comfortable, we’re less likely to move or adjust our lives. Jesus’ invitation was to follow Him, and following is always going to require movement.
Why do we need to be in church? There are two things at church that make us uncomfortable and compel our stories forward. We need them both equally.
The first is relationships. We need to be at church because there are people at church that we need to be in a relationship with. We need the challenge that they bring to our lives. You can’t get that online. It happens when you’re there.
The second thing we need is a Pastor. We need someone to lovingly force a spiritual conversation for us each week that compels growth in our relationship with God. We need to not be able to press pause or skip to another, more comfortable talk that we’d rather listen to.
The church is a bold assembly of broken people united in worship of a beautiful Savior. We need the people and that Pastor, and you can’t really have that when you’re not there.
It matters. And… It matters that you’re there.