Don't Wait to Go to Church
On the quiet pride that keeps us from grace
There are two main reasons people don’t want to come to church.
The first and most obvious is the inevitable confrontation with their sin. The Word of God functions like a mirror, exposing blemishes that would rather remain hidden. The light reveals what the darkness conceals, and coming face to face with the preaching of God’s holy law wounds the conscience and unsettles the soul.
Yet as painful as that lesson may be, many people can at least understand it. They know, by nature and by conscience, that something is wrong. They sense that they have not lived up to some moral or ethical standard. This much, they can grasp.
But even after acknowledging this, many still stay away from the house of the Lord. Because alongside the discomfort of facing their sin lies another, deeper realization: there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.
When I was serving in college ministry, I often heard students say they stopped coming to church because they “weren’t doing spiritually well.” While I appreciated their honesty, I could never quite understand the logic behind that reasoning. I would ask when they planned to return, and the answer was usually some version of: “I’ll come back once I get a few things together.” Of course, few actually did.
It’s one thing to acknowledge your sin and inadequacy. It’s another to admit your powerlessness to fix it. And in refusing to do so, many also fail to recognize the power of the Gospel.
Fathers struggling to lead their families will take time away from church to “get things in order.” Mothers wrestling with anxiety will isolate themselves until they feel “ready.” Couples with conflict will stay home, and singles battling pornography will never ask for help.
This mentality is not only misguided—it is destructive. For some, it may seem foolish to return to church before their lives are sorted out. Yet as 1 Corinthians 1:18 reminds us, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
While proximity with God and His people is not a promise of prosperity and comfort, it is the only solution for the sinfulness of man. The irony is that the very thing people avoid—the gathered church, the preached Word, the communion of saints—is the only thing that can heal what they’re trying to fix from afar.
The Gospel begins where our strength ends. And that’s why the church, for all its imperfections, remains the place where sinners can find peace and learn to hope again.