Before we talk about stopping going to church, it’s useful to add context about how we started going to church in the first place.
Jan’s Intro.....
I was brought up in a Christian family going to a Brethren church, in fact it wasn’t called a church but an ‘assembly’. There were three services on a Sunday; Breaking of Bread (communion) back home for lunch then, Sunday School in the afternoon, back home for tea and then the evening, Gospel Service, where it was hoped people who were not Christians would be there to have ‘the Gospel’ preached to them. Of course, there were also meetings during the week; Bible studies, Ladies meetings, Prayer meetings and often, on a Saturday, Missionary Meetings where a person who had been abroad would come and tell their story with photos, film etc. So I grew up with this being the normal thing to do.
I became a Christian when I was five, through a Baptist Church minister at Christmas, but I had always felt the presence of the Lord in my life before then – going to church was just what you did to be with other Christians. I didn’t feel any closer to God if I was in a ‘church’ building.
During my teenage years I joined a home Bible study (run by a couple who attended the Assembly) and also went to other Brethren meetings in the area I lived in. The Bible study was where I met Dave, my husband, but the study also helped my faith.
Dave’s Intro.....
I went to church for the first time aged 5 yrs old. My Aunt decided this would be good for me. It was many years later that I learned she was actually my Godmother! The only thing I remember about that church visit was getting a picture card of a blond blue eyed Jesus. I remember being unimpressed and never went again.
When I was 7yrs old my Parents separated and we moved around quite a bit. Then at 18yrs old. a friend persuaded me to go to the 1966 Billy Graham event in London, and I became a Christian. I started going to my friend’s church for a few weeks, but didn’t own a suit, felt out of place and quit. It took another year to re-engage with the whole ‘going to church’ thing, via a young peoples’ Bible study group in the home of a truly wonderful couple. It was also where Jan and I met, which was an added incentive.
I (Dave) had joined a Team of Christians who ran a Christian Coffee Bar in a small Essex Village. The Coffee Bar was a meeting place for local teenagers/twenty somethings and Christians would meet with them and chat about their faith. I (Jan) went along to be with Dave and also got involved. It was then that, on meeting other Christians who had different ways of expressing their faith, I began to see that there was more that the Lord had for me.
So, What Happened Next?.....
During the next few years after we got married, we realized that there was so much more to Christian life than ‘just going to church’ – the Holy Spirit moved on so many people at this time, including us, and this led to feeling called to full time Christian work and Bible College. Big physical changes led to further spiritual changes and at the Bible College we met and fellowshipped with people from all over the world – different types of worship and experience led by the staff who also shared their faith in different ways from different churches.
During the following years, God led us to many places and involvement in many different churches, and when we moved to Wirral [Merseyside] in 1988, we joined a local Evangelical Church. Over the next 11 years we were involved in Sunday School teaching, Worship Band and Worship Leading, Deaconate, Home Group Leadership. Everything except Eldership.
Then the fellowship’s pastor retired and the church went through horrendous leadership upheavals. God kept telling us to stay, and we were often caught in the middle of things as we wouldn’t take sides. After the final upheaval, which saw the new Pastor of just one year, sacked, God said it was time to go. We left but didn’t realise, nor could we have possibly imagined, how this would lead to us not being a member of a particular building-based church, but to being simply a member of, The Church.
We did initially join a new fellowship (house style), but it didn’t last as the leader moved away to the NE and it folded.
Then an unexpected thing happened. In January 2001, when we found ourselves without a fellowship to attend, God said to us, very clearly, not to join another church. WHAT!? REALLY!?
A Different Journey
However, for the next two years we continued to try to join another church as that was what we still felt Christians did, but the experiences we had all pointed to us ‘not attending a building church’ but meeting with Christians and non Christians where ever they were.
It took us those 2 years to really believe this was what God wanted, and during that time numerous things happened to show us this really was what God wanted, including Jan once being asked to leave a Cathedral.
I (Jan) was in a town and bought a Big Issue Magazine from a street vendor then went into the Cathedral. I popped into the loo and when I came out into a side part of the place it looked empty of other people. The organ was playing and I stood for a moment enjoying the music when a man appeared (maybe an usher or sides person) to tell me in no uncertain terms I couldn’t stand there and would have to leave! I had no idea what he was talking about as the Cathedral was open to the public all day.
Suffice to say he got quite nasty when I questioned why I had to leave – he got very close and angry saying it was an organ recital and people had paid money for seats – everyone else had to leave. To avoid further unpleasantness I left, puzzled at this behavior. Outside I found crowds of people who had also been sent out – one group from Italy who had come to pray in the Cathedral! I was more than upset for everyone and walked off down the road with tears in my eyes asking the Lord what was this all about.
I got out my street map to get to my next stop, and then the Big Issue seller was suddenly there asking if I needed any help (the difference in attitude was very healing). He was so helpful and as I was standing talking to him on the street corner I felt the Lord’s Presence around me and the Lord said, ‘This is where I want you, on the street, where people are’. I realized finally that the Lord really wanted us to share our faith in the places He took us to, meeting inside and outside buildings of all sorts where ever He wanted us to be.
Two or three similar things happened to one or the other of us during this times Including both of us being, not exactly welcomed, by an individual at another Cathedral.
Suffice to say we eventually got the message!
Being, Church where there is no Church.
This was the start of a very different mindset for us and quite a different life – yes we still meet with Christian friends, yes we may sometimes attend a service in a building but we know that wherever we are, we are part of the Body of Jesus, ‘The Church’.
At a meeting with friends, a Prophetic word was given to us, which re-emphasized that we were to be, ‘Church where there is no Church’. This, of course, applies to the whole Body of Christ, whether you attend a building or not. We are meant to reach people who may never enter a building for whatever reason. In other words, take Church into the Community.
After 23 years living in Birkenhead. God led us to New Brighton, where we had the bright idea of holding informal Bible related meetings in our flat. God simply said, ‘Nah’, and then we quickly became involved, without really trying (God again!) in the local community as: Beach Rubbish Pickers, Part-time Pirates and a number of other community related things including Jan’s photography. This gave us the chances to pray with people who would never pass a conventional church threshold and to simply be there for folks. It has been an interesting journey, and is not over yet!
At this point it would be a good idea to talk about ‘church’ and ‘Church’ in a little more depth.
Church and church
As a word, ‘church’, can mean a great deal of things to many people. To some it is a physical place where they meet with others, during the week and particularly on Sundays, to corporately take part in acts of worship and fellowship.
To others, ‘church’, is a complete mystery and plays no part whatsoever in their daily lives or thinking.
In a Christian context, ‘church’ is neither of the above. Rather it is, or should be, ‘Church’ (note the capital letter) which is the name given to those who follow Jesus Christ, and have become, ‘born again’ (and there’s another abused phrase!). Church is NOT a place, it is NOT a building, it IS a people. That is the true biblical meaning of the word, and once we accept that, it radically alters how we think about, and what we think of as, ‘church’.
No longer can we say, we are, ‘going to church’, and mean a building; or, ‘what church do you belong to?’, and mean anything other than the complete Body of Christian Believers.
We can begin to view the physical infrastructure of ‘church’; the meetings, the endless ‘activities’, and the politics, as being what they really are – a Man-Made deception and a diversion from the true calling of, The Church. That calling? To go into all the world and spread the good news of the Gospel of Christ.
Concerning how the Church should be, James Thwaites, in his book, ‘The Church Beyond the Congregation’, puts it like this:
“It is (this) concentration of 98% of the ministry gifts in and around congregational settings that sets the agenda….. We need to look beyond the local church community to see the eternal purpose towards which they are all meant to be working. These things are not given to just build the church localised and organised; they are given to build the church as the fullness of him who fills all in all. That Church exists in marriage, family and work. It cannot live and bear the fruit that God intends within programmes, buildings and meetings. The Church gathered must ultimately exist to equip and resource the body of Christ with a view to the saints coming into their fullness in, through and over the ‘all things’ of creation. It simply cannot be the other way around. "
[© 1999 Paternoster Press]
Jesus didn’t die on a cross to give us ‘religious meetings’, nor to create a Christian (using the term loosely) commercial sub-cultural ghetto where we idle our lives away amusing each other, preaching to the converted, and encouraging each other to, ‘be blessed’ , or to ,‘have faith and be rich and healthy’. We are not called to be busking by the queue for Hell. Rather we are called to be pulling people out of that queue.
But we need to clear our vision. We need to re-discover (or perhaps discover for the first time) what, The Church, is really all about, new ways of being Salt and Light to a dark and dying world, new ways of worshipping and serving God. We are tired of having our minds moulded by dead orthodoxy and false, Man-made Religion. We want to free our minds through being living sacrifices, which is our real worship (The Bible-Romans chapter 12).
We are strangers in a strange land; passing through on a journey to that celestial city. We should stop living as though our calling is to be ‘something’ in this world, to put down roots and take up permanent residence. Let’s regain our focus, re-commit our lives to following Christ and spreading the word.
Jesus died to set us free, not imprison the Good News behind bricks and mortar, being suffocated by Man-Made Religion.
