Many times I have been asked what is the use of going to church, what good does it do me, what will I get out of it? It is like being asked what is the use of getting married, what good does it do me? If I answered such a question by saying, “Well, it is very useful to get married! You have someone to do the housework, the shopping, cook the meals, etc.,” it would clearly be a false view of marriage. No woman wants to be merely a housekeeper, kept because of her functionality. There is only one supreme reason for getting married—for love’s sake, for the other’s sake, for mutual love, self-giving, a longing for intimate communion, and sharing everything.
So in Christian worship, we worship God for God’s sake; we come together for Christ’s sake, motivated by love. An awareness of God’s holy love for us, revealed in Jesus Christ, awakens in us a longing for intimate communion—to know the love of the Father and to participate in the life and ministry of Christ.
Love always implies a communion between persons. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is a community of Love! God is Love! The Church (those adopted into the Father’s family of love) gathers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—in love; to commune with the God of love and each other. We were created for communion – to be “co-lovers.” We are to find our identity, our fulfillment in this community of love—our true “being” is in “being-in-communion” with God and one another, sharing in God’s love for the world as “co-lovers.”
So, what is the use of going to church, what good does it do me, what will I get out of it? I discover who I am by realizing “whose” I am! I develop who I am by living in this community of love! I am deployed (or sent) into the world as a living expression of the God who is love!
Only as I commune with God in His “body” (the church) do I truly become the “image” of who He created me to be. Only in this atmosphere of love, THE BODY OF LOVE, can I really come to my fullest and highest potential in Christ.
