Life Goes On

Why Go to Church? - Craig Blomberg : Recently I wrote a blog post on the importance of church attendance.  This post by Craig Blomberg goes even deeper than I did. Just this past Sunday we experienced our low attendance for the year in our little church.  Only 13 people gathered for the evening service. (Yes, we still have one)  Some of the "reasons" (excuses) that good people give for not attending would come off as very lame when they stand before God and give an answer as to why they only attended when "convenient". I predict that unless the LORD comes back soon believers in America will not enjoy the freedom to worship that we have had in the past.  We will begin to experience what our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, parts of Africa, China and North Korea have been experiencing for years.  Our "take it or leave it" attitude toward church attendance is in direct violation of scripture, as Blomberg points out in his article.  Violating scriptu

Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13   "Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus." I believe that what Paul wrote is applicable in the life of any Christian.  We have all been called by Christ to a new life in Him.  At the moment we received Christ as Lord and Savior, we were also called to be witnesses for Him (Acts 1:8). Some would like to say that this only applied to the apostles.  If that were the case, Holy Spirit would not have preserved the message for you and me today.  Regret is a tool that the devil uses to derail Christians in their pursuit of the prize.  We often live in an "if only" world.  "If only I had done this" or "if only I hadn't done that."  If Jesus had that attitude, He would never have gone to the cross for us.  If Paul had tha

New polls show that many people who attend church once a month or quarter or maybe even twice a year consider themselves to be "regular attenders".  This has resulted in a new classification of church attenders called "Chresters"  (Christmas and Easter attenders).  It seems that the younger generation does not see church attendance as a priority.  Perhaps they have forgotten that the fact of their parents or grandparents being consistent in their church attendance is a factor in their coming into a relationship with God.  It doesn't take much for such people to miss church; visiting relatives, hobbies, family time, preparation for the coming work week all take precedence over church attendance. Once when I was a Youth Pastor, I devised a plan to emphasize the flippant attitude many of them had toward church.  With only a couple of people being aware of what was up, I did not show up for Youth Group on a Wednesday evening.  After waiting for about 10 minutes, on