MEETING TOGETHER MEETING TOGETHER
THERE are certain church activities that are essential to the well-being of Christ's Church. Essential for our growing in understanding of the truth. Essential to our growing in friendship with one another. Essential for the people of God being bound together in a loving family where each feels loved and that they belong. Essential for each individual Christian's emotional and spiritual needs. Essential in our being strengthened against all the assaults of the evil one.
What are these activities. There are two main ones. The first we all appreciate and understand and it is regular Sunday by Sunday worship at the Services in the church to which we belong. If we do not belong to a local congregation, then we should. God gave us one day in seven to rest from the business of life, and to come apart and meet with him, nurture our souls, and build up our fellowship together.
The second is one meeting a week when we meet with God's people for fellowship, prayer and learning from the Bible. This may not be perceived as an essential activity, but it is so. Paul emphasises its necessity in a verse in Hebrews, chapter 10 and verse 25, "let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching".
This is an essential activity because it is where all the elements of the Christians life mentioned by the apostle from v.19 are nurtured. It is by meeting together that we learn to draw near to God with assurance (v.21) as the Gospel is made known to us more deeply. It is by meeting together that we learn to hold unswervingly the hope we profess (v.23). It is by meeting together that we spur each other on towards love and good works (v.24).
By meeting together we get to know each other and become united as one family of God in Jesus Christ. We are able to encourage each other, because in this loving environment we are able to share our needs, sorrows, difficulties, temptations, problems, and so on.
The trouble is that we are all so busy. We have our homes, and for many of us that means the demanding care of children. We have our employment which takes up a major part of our time and energy. Then many have responsibilities in their church life or organisations, that also take time and are demanding in physical and spiritual resources. With all this we feel overwhelmed and something, we feel, must be given up, and it usually is our meeting together for fellowship and learning together, or if we don't give it up altogether our attendance is sporadic.
Sporadic attendance or attendance from time to time causes us to miss the benefit of gathering together. As the regular members grow in friendship and understanding, we don't and so feel left out and marginalised. We also miss the continuity of the teaching, and so when we do attend it is so much more difficult to pick up the threads of thought and understanding. This then makes us feel it is not worth coming at all and so we stop coming.
When we neglect meeting together several things happen to us. Our spiritual life suffers. We are starving ourselves of spiritual food and nourishment and so our spiritual strength diminishes. We are then less able to fight temptation and weather the problems and difficulties of life. Our integration into the church family suffers. When we are away we tend to be forgotten. This should not be so, but it happens. It is not intentional, but it is part of the weakness of human nature. We then feel unsupported and rejected. We find it more difficult to come back into the fellowship, because we feel the fellowship has given us up. Then in our work for Jesus in the church we are not able to do this so well. Spiritually and emotionally we are drained and empty.
What is the remedy. Well, however busy we are, we should understand that meeting together is not the thing to neglect or give up. It is just one of the ploys of the devil that causes us to think so. It may be the easiest option, but it is not the right one. If we have to give up something in the church life, even if it is helping or running some organisation, or doing some necessary service, this is to be preferred for giving up, rather than meeting together once a week for fellowship and instruction.
But most often the problem can be solved when we let Jesus reorganise our lives, so that firstly, time is not wasted, and secondly, we love the things of God so much that it is our chief recreation.
How can we nurture each other in meeting together. We can do it by seeing that these times together each week are blessed times. Each individual needs to seek to promote this end. We can do it by remembering each other and loving each other, and thus making each member feel welcome and wanted. Lastly we can do it by discipline. In the end, because of the frailty of our nature, we do not always feel we want to come to the weekly meeting. Discipline keeps us regular in attendance and so we attend and are blessed.