Can you be a Christian if you don’t go to church?

They say that exceptions prove the rule, and there are certainly exceptions for the answer I am about to give you.  There will be people who simply can’t go to church, like those isolated Christians who live in parts of the world where they don’t have contact with other believers.  There is also the housebound elderly, whose stage in life means that the church should come to them rather than they going to the church.  Those sorts of exceptions been noted, I have to say that if you claim to be a Christian but you don’t go to church, there is something very deficient in your faith.  You may even need to stop and ask if you are actually born again.

I should explain what I mean by being a Christian.  Being a Christian is not simply about being a respectable and good person.  Being a Christian is about having a living relationship with Jesus.  It is centred on his death and resurrection.  You don’t become a Christian because of anything you have done for God, but by accepting what he has done for you.  Bible-believing Christians talk about been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8).  We are saved from our sin and God’s judgement, because Jesus has taken our punishment on the cross.  We are saved to be adopted as beloved children of God (Galatians 4:5).  This happens by grace—which is God’s free, unmerited and undeserved favour.  This is received simply by faith - the sort of faith that is spoken of in the hymn that goes, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’  This new life that we receive in Christ, includes a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), and this new heart shows itself in our love for other Christians (1 John 4:20).

I should also explain what I mean about going to church.  In the Bible church is portrayed as being the body of Jesus.  It is not a building.  It is a community of people who love Jesus.  In the apostle Paul’s letters to the Christians at Ephesus he talks about what we might call the universal church—all God’s people everywhere (Ephesians 2:21-22).  Every Christian is a part of this global body.  But in his letters to the Corinthian Christians he talks the body of Christ in terms of the local community of Christians (see 1 Corinthians 12).  He also speaks about times when Christians come together as church (1 Corinthians 11:18).  Being a part of a church is more than going to meetings, but making a priority of going to the church’s main gathering is a vital part of being in a church.

Church is not supposed to be easy.  We are called to bear with each other (Ephesians 4:2).  Bearing with other Christians can be trying.  God doesn’t only rescue the type of people we find it easy to get on with.  We are given gifts to serve each other (1 Corinthians 12:7).  Most shockingly for our society, we are called to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), including submitting to the church’s leaders (Hebrews 13:17).  Too many people fall out with church because they really want to be the leaders of the church.  They don’t want to submit to anyone else, and they make too big a deal about secondary points of doctrine.

So, what should we say to someone who claims to be a Christian but has no meaningful relationship with a local church?  This is an increasing problem in a day when you can simply think you are doing church by watching or listening to religious television or radio.

We have to show them the importance of church.  We were baptised into a body (1 Corinthians 12:23).  Christianity is not a private faith, it is becoming a part of a people.  We have to ask them about their heart, for we have been recreated to delight in God’s people (Psalm 16:3).  And we have to warn them, for in the book of Hebrews falling away from the faith is linked to giving up meeting with God’s people (Hebrews 10:25).  They are placing themselves in great spiritual danger.

I hesitate to end with this piece of advice, but if you can’t get on in the church you are involved in then you may need to move church.  Moving church should never be taken lightly, for it is separating a limb from a body, and that always causes pain.  In fact, for many Christians moving church is simply not an option because they only have one local church to choose from.  If moving church is simply a way to find a church that entertains you better, puts you in a more central role or enables you to avoid difficult people, then moving church may not actually help your heart.  But you may have your reasons, and they may even be legitimate.  However one thing you must not do is to give up meeting with God’s people.