Why I Attend Church

Recently Donald Miller made some waves with his blog post: I Don't Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere. His main point is that he does not attend church often because he is not an auditory learning and therefore does not get much out of listening to others sing or speak.

I have heard many people justify reasons that they do not attend church. Rather than argue with someone about their reasons for not attending, I wanted to share with you reasons that I attend church: other than the unmistakeable fact that I am a pastor and it is expected of me to attend church.

Being in one place with others who are gathered for the same purpose, to bring honor to God, allows me to get my priorities straight. Life is not about what I want, what is best for me, or what will make me happy. Life in and of itself is an expression of my great love for the Creator. That love compels me to worship Him privately publicly.

Yes, I can worship God on my own, and I must do so before I can worship God corporately, but there is something special about worshipping God alongside fellow believers. When I fail to worship even just one week it becomes much easier to forget that life is about Someone much greater than me. If I was to do this several weeks in a row my focus would permanently shift from a vertical viewpoint to a scattered one filled with a longing for self fulfillment. 

Worship moves me from selfishness to selflessness. Worshipping God requires that I abandon my natural instinct to think of myself first. Worshipping God requires me to sacrifice my own opinions, desires, and preferences for the sake of seeing God exalted above all things. Worshipping God is an act of obedience that shows that I have the fortitude to rely on Someone better suited to control my life than me. Worshipping God conveys that I have the wisdom to realize that I am nothing without God.

Granted, Miller is correct that most organized worship services are planned around an auditory learning style. I am not an auditory learning either. I am a visual learner. I learn fare more from reading and watching than by listening. My wife is more if a kinesthetic learner. She does not like me to tell her how to do something, she wants me to show her and then let her have some hands on time to learn it.

But worship includes much more than audible means of participation. We are to praise God with our whole selves: mind, heart, body, and soul. Worship includes kinesthetic praise through singing, clapping, kneeling, dancing, reading scripture out loud, raising hands, and giving a tithe for starters. Worship also includes visual praise through decorations, banners, displayed or printed lyrics to songs, reading God's Word, sermon illustrations, drama and so much more. And worship does include auditory means of praise where we listen to a choir, a soloist, an instrumental prelude or offertory, or the sermon. Many worship expressions and forms of praise combine all three learning styles in one area.

If you are a kinesthetic or visual learner and do not feel that the worship services at your church are helping you to worship God, don't simply stop going to church. Talk to your pastor about ways that you can be of assistance in bringing about some worship experiences that will help others like you. We are all part of the body of Christ, and as such, we must work together so that the body is functioning in a manner that involves everyone and provides for the needs of everyone so that together we can bring honor to God.