Why We Should Go to Church

Whenever I would think of this question, my mind would immediately go to the command of Hebrews 10:25, "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is."  I imagined this as a stern command of the apostle, with a disparaging glance to the some who have forsaken this necessary practice.

But why was it necessary?  Must we attend a church in order to know God?  If that were true, God would be someone only available to us on Sunday mornings, and not throughout the week--something which is not only unscriptural but also anathema to most evangelicals.  But if God is available to us outside of church, why do we need to go?  Why the need to "assemble ourselves together"?  Some might say that it is because this is how God wants to be worshiped, by all of us together singing hymns or whatnot, but that simply isn't true.  In John 4:21-23, Jesus rejects both the Jews' worship in the temple of Jerusalem and the Samaritan's worship of God in their own temple.  He doesn't substitute these assemblies with a new one but says, "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him."  If we are to be the true worshipers God desires, our worship of him must be in spirit and truth and extend beyond the confines of our congregational assemblies.

So why is our assembly so important?  It turns out that the passage of Hebrews I (mis)quoted earlier has the answer:

And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

That's why we need to meet together.  We need encouragement and we need to encourage others.  That's it...and that raises some questions for me about our churches.  Are we really fulfilling this command when we go to church, or are our assemblies vain to this end?  Churches, Biblically speaking, do not exist as the entity for a Christian to serve, but as an entity to serve the Christian, a place where he or she can go to encourage others and be encouraged himself in the pursuit of love, good works, and nearness to God.  Do our churches really accomplish that, or have they become self-serving entities whose first goal is to increase their own numbers rather than to enrich the spiritual lives of their congregants?  If the latter is the case with any church we attend, scripturally, we should start looking for another one, as that church no longer helps us obey the command of Hebrews 10:24-25.