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Why Saying “Let’s Go To Church” Is Bad Theology

• http://www.anglicanhealth.com Val W. Finnell, MD, MPH

  I would like to commend this post for its attempt to erase the dualistic thinking that is prevalent throughout the Church and Western culture. For those of us in the Anglican tradition, we should never say, “Let’s go to church.” Instead, we should always say, “Let’s go to Holy Eucharist, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, etc.” The Church is the entire body of believers (both lay and those in Holy Orders) at all times, in all places, and all situations. Our life is our worship of God, whether gathered for liturgical functions or performing our callings in the world.

• Mollie

  I am so glad to hear someone else saying this!  I get these looks like, “you know what I meant” as I am trying to correct my venacular.  The phrase “go to church” is so hard to weed out of my speech, but I am working on it by saying what I mean!  Thanks very much!!!

• http://gracetransforms.org/ Kevin

  I appreciate the sentiment of this argument and the issue it’s trying to address. However, for this to be right, you would have to show that the word ‘church’ is never used in the NT to refer to the gathering of God’s people, when clearly it is often used this way. The word ‘church’ in the NT as you know translates ‘ekklesia’ a very ordinary word that can mean ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly’. That’s why William Tyndale chose the word ‘congregation’ rather than ‘church’ in his translation.  Peter O’Brien  (in D. A. Carson ed., The Church in the Bible and the World) argues that the universal church (eg Hebrews 12:23) is a “heavenly and eschatalogical assembly” . If he’s right, you could argue there are no places in the NT where the word ‘church’ is used without some connection to an assembly, even in places where it refers to the ‘scatttered gathering’. So in NT terms it’s perfectly valid to ‘go to church’ just as it’s valid to say ‘you are the church’.

• Kathleen

  Interesting to hear this. When my oldest child Brian (who is now 33) was very little I taught him, and then my other 3 children the little finger play “Here is the Church”. But I changed the words because I believe that we are the church.  So I would open my fingers and wiggle them and say “here is the church” then close my hands into the shape of the building and say, “here is the steeple, this is the building that hold’s God’s people.”  

• Lamar Carnes

  It seems everything I listen to one of the videos on Verge, I have to disagree with it in terms of a basic theme it is projecting. Something is going on that is out of order to some extent.  This issue of the “local ekklesia” is taught so much in the N.T. it is hard to see how anyone could not see this. And we also know the “invisible body of Christ” or the “called out one’s” we can’t really “see” or “know” belong to this “total” Church comprised of all saints of all ages past and to come.  But the Bible is clear about the “moment of time where the local ekklesia or Church” assembles and congregates together to conduct certain very important matters such as described in Acts where they did very definite things, such as; prayer, fellowship, Lord’s table and being taught the word of G:od given to the Apostles.  Sure, we are not ever to think when we leave we are no longer “the Church member or a particular part of the body at large” for we are.  So there can be a dualism creeping in where someone not properly taught the word would think that way.  But really, this idea of tearing apart the ekklesia (which is a spiritual birthed entity comrprised of phyiscally living Saints who congregate together to do coporate activities) body insomuch one is to think the “coming together is really not that important” is a wrong concept!  A further study on the nature of the “local ekklesia” is needed by Verge and others who seem to be vocalizing these things in a weak or negative manner against congregating necessities for carrying out the work of Christ in many of its facets – especially worship and study of the word. 
     One of the problems of “small groups” is that there is a tendency of the “entire body” locally never to get to know each other or fellowship together enough to know each other or worship in prayer or other matters with parts of that body.  How would you like to have your “arms” laying around somewhere else and your body running around all over the place without them?  Would you not feel some loss of some type?  And in fact it would not function well.  The local assembly is in need of all of its members to be functioning together in many and multitudes of things.  So let’s build that concept up rather than tear it down!!  

• http://www.runningtohim.com/ Christian

  Interesting.

• http://missionallendale.wordpress.com/ Joey Espinosa

  I have used the same terminology with our kids, like that “we go to church meeting.” Yeah, “meeting” may not have the best connotations for us career people, for at least for my kids it got across the point that we are the church.

• http://twitter.com/DannyLSmith Danny Smith

  I agree, this is hard, to not be dualistic.

• Marcus Johnson

  In all 114 instances of the word “church” in the New Testament, never is that term used to refer to a building or a service or an event.  The context in which that term is used never indicates just a gaggle of people together in one place.  The word “church” always implies a people identified by their mission.  Again, the words we use and the way we use them indicate what we believe, and if people in our congregations only interpret “church’ to mean “worship service” or “building,” we’ve missed the point.