Am I My Brother's Keeper?
“Gathering with God’s people is not first about being blessed but about being a blessing.” – Tim Challies
Drifting away from church and from our walk with Jesus is always a real and present danger. The enemy uses many tools at his disposal to get Christians off course, to distract us from growing in our relationship with Jesus, to turn our focus to anything besides loving God and loving others. Before COVID, church membership and attendance had been trending downward across our country. COVID has only accelerated this drift for many. As most of our country returns to pre-COVID activities, returning to church has lagged far behind. Some who attended Sunday worship services weekly are now attending once or twice a month, and some have stopped attending altogether.
Despite the warnings and exhortations, we have seen this take place here among our New City family also. We have a number of visitors every week, and new partners joining the church every month, and even so, attendance is 25% lower than it was pre-COVID.
This blog is not another appeal for you to rejoin Sunday worship services because you need it (you do!) – the appeal is for you to consider how THE REST OF US NEED YOU!
Your New City brothers and sisters need your encouragement. New visitors need your welcoming; some are unchurched or recovering from a hurtful church experience and in desperate need of love and encouragement. Some have never had a church family. If you have not prioritized Sunday morning worship for self-focused reasons, I humbly appeal to you, on behalf of our family and our visitors, to “consider how to stir up 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.” - Hebrews 10:24-25
This article on Challies.com drives this point home:
“This passage [Hebrews 10:24-25] does, indeed, warn of the serious consequences of skipping church, but its focus is not what we might expect through our Western, individualized eyes. This passage does not warn us that when we skip church we put ourselves at risk. Rather, it warns us that when we skip church we put other people at risk. The first sin of skipping church is the sin of failing to love others…
Our commitment to the local church… is a commitment to other people through all of life… that we will identify and deploy our spiritual gifts for their benefit so we can serve them, strengthen them, and bless them.”
Will you love your brothers and sisters by investing your God-given gifts in encouraging your church family?