WHY I NEED TO BE IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY – This coming Sunday is Back to Church Sunday, a national Church of England initiative aimed at reaching those with some previous connection with church.
Although I applaud the ‘back to church’ initiative, I would rather it be a ‘back to the Gospel’ initiative and I think this blog post from Cranmer’s Curate articulates this very aptly.
WHY I NEED TO BE IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY
This coming Sunday is Back to Church Sunday, a national Church of England initiative aimed at reaching those with some previous connection with church. Cranmer’s Curate is not exactly a lapsed church-goer but here are his reasons why he needs to be there:
I am innately inclined to think that I am the centre of the universe and profoundly disinclined to give my Creator God the glory and honour He deserves. As the Apostle Paul put it in Romans 1v25,
‘they (wicked people like me) exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen’ (RSV).
I am innately inclined to conform to the prevailing ungodly culture around me and disinclined to want to be seen in the public company of those with whom the Lord Jesus Christ personally identifies, namely the gathering of Christian believers, His Church. My nature is to do the opposite of what the Lord Jesus commands His disciples in John 13v34-35:
‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
Because of the above two incontrovertible facts about my intrinsic nature and inclinations, I am a hell-bound sinner whose only hope of salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom I cannot come to believe unless a God-sent preacher explains His saving work to me. As the Apostle Paul affirms with his famous rhetorical questions in Romans 10v14:
‘But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?’
Paul neatly summarises his argument in v17:
‘So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.’
Your curate will spare the blogosphere a YouTube video with his talking head making the above case – that would be likely to lead to renewed calls for internet censorship. But it would be most helpful to hear a Church of England bishop tell me those home truths about the real state of my soul and its amazing salvation in his public pitch for Back to Church Sunday.
Tags: Church Life