Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?

Church attendance is not mandatory in your relationship with Christ. It is not something you do to pay your duty to God so you can go live like the devil the rest of the week. Unfortunately, there are many people who go to church for wrong reasons and never develop a good relationship with Jesus. Then there are thousands of excuses people use to not go to church. But, here are a few reasons why you should regularly attend church. Church is where I go to experience a deeper expression of praise and worship than I can achieve by myself. It is where I go to hear Scripture discussed by others who are more experienced or more knowledgeable than I am. It’s where I go to help me fill that desire to know all I can about God. It is where I go to leave a burden too heavy for me to carry alone. It is where I go to help carry a burden too heavy for someone else to carry alone. It is where I go and rejoice when I hear about an elderly wheel chair bound woman who sends cards of encouragement to a single mom struggling to make ends meet and meet the emotional needs of her three small children, to a 60 year old man who just lost his job for the third time in five years, to a home sick soldier and to an early teenage girl who just lost her mother to cancer. Church is where I go to help make a difference in my community, my country and the world. Church is where I go to do more than I can do by myself to bind up the broken and lift up the fallen. Church is where I go to make sure I’m a part of the solution to all the pain and suffering in the world instead of being part of the problem. I don’t have to go to church. It’s just that I can’t imagine not going.