One Another

So why do you go to church? 

At the heart of it, the only thing that makes the church fundamentally different than what the world offers is that it is (or is supposed to be) through-and-through a fellowship experience. You're not supposed to be able to do church "alone." You're not supposed to be able to just go and consume content or have a sensory experience or even have a human experience; church is intended to be a shared experience. A fellowship. 

And it is here that so many of our churches are fundamentally failing. 

It's fellowship that keeps folks in the church. 

We've already discussed how they can consume content from anywhere on the planet. The truth is that for a lot of churches, they can even consume your content from the little content device in their pocket. So it doesn't really matter how good your content is; a world that's just looking for content can find it in spades. They don't need your church for that. 

We've also discussed how they can have a sensory experience very well at home. With big screen televisions, home projectors, sound systems with bass boost, even popcorn or crackers or juice or bread or whatever in their own pantry, it's entirely possible to have the full church sensory experience at home. So it doesn't really matter how good your production is, either; a world that's looking for a sensory experience can have it just fine on its own. They don't need your church for that. 

They don't even need your church to have a human experience. There are plenty of places in this world that they can go to be doing the same things that others are doing and draw on the human reactions of those other persons - shopping at the mall, eating at a restaurant, sitting in a movie theater, playing at a park. The world is full of parallel play opportunities. They don't need your church for that. 

To an extent, we could even say they don't need your church for a shared human experience. That's what friends and family and coworkers are for. Most persons have at least one person they can call if they want to make a memory, to form a connection, to have a moment together. 

The difference in the church is that the shared human experience is fundamental to it. It's not optional. You don't have to go looking for it. Or, you shouldn't have to. Walking into a church should be automatically walking into a place where you're having a shared human experience, where the connection between persons is the most fundamental thing about it. 

We've lost sight of this. And that's why so many of our folks are leaving our churches and looking elsewhere. They are realizing that the one thing that the church is supposed to have in abundance, that the church is supposed to be above and beyond all else, is lacking. If they walk into a church, even if they walk into a church for 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more and at some point realize they are just consuming content, just having a sensory experience, just having a human experience, then that's the point at which they're going to walk out. Because at some point, they realize they can do that basically - virtually - anywhere. 

I think that's why Jesus told us to love one another. 

It's truly the only thing that sets us apart from literally everything else.