Countryside Baptist celebrated its forty-first anniversary yesterday. The church started on the first Sunday of May 1985. Bill Howard was the original Pastor, and I came along ten years later.

It was a wonderful day! We had a slideshow with pictures going all the way back to the beginning, presented gifts to the congregation, and had lots of singing, along with the usual amount of preaching. After morning church, we went to a local state park for a picnic and an afternoon service at the shelter. A baptism was planned but postponed because the creek was a bit too high, and with temperatures in the thirties on Sunday morning, it was a bit nippy to get someone all wet.

The day ended with a mortgage burning and a song. It’s interesting how God brings coincidences. The gift for a forty-first anniversary is land, and God had our land paid off in the church’s forty-first year.

The slideshow and the testimonies at the park highlighted the lasting impact Countryside Baptist has had on people’s lives, both past and present.

During the testimonies, people spoke of their love for the church and how God had helped them, both materially and spiritually, through the people of the church.

During the slideshow, lots of memories, a few laughs, and swelling of hearts for precious times gone by. What impressed me during the slideshow was the number of people, dozens, maybe a hundred or more, who are no longer part of our little congregation. Many of those have passed into eternity; some still live in the area and either attend another church or no church at all; many have changed location. A college student who moved to Washington state to pursue her career, an older couple who went south to retire and settled in Mississippi, and many others who moved an hour or two away to find better employment. It is amazing to me, looking at all the people and realizing that God has used our small church to affect so many people; some for a short period of time, others for decades.

Thinking about these people and the lasting influence our church has had is what brought this week’s column to mind.

Being a minister, I talk to many people about the Lord and church. It is fascinating how many people I run into who will tell me that they are a Christian, but also tell me they do not go to church, and some of them have no intention of ever attending another church again.

The reasons for not attending church are specific to each person, but in over fifty years of preaching and nearly forty years of pastoring, I have never been told that the reason for not going to church is that they could not find a church that did not preach the truth. In other words, if doctrine, or what a person believes, is the issue, they will either stay or find a church more in line with their beliefs. It is my experience that the two major reasons that people who claim to be Christians do not attend church are either a lack of interest or because someone has said or done something to offend them.

A church is an organization and a family. No organization or family is perfect; why should we then expect a church to be perfect?

“Well, Preacher, I can worship God just as good at home as I can at church.” That is a statement I have heard hundreds of times. Here is the truth about that statement. It is used as an excuse not to go to church. My response to that statement is that every Christian should worship God just as well at home as in church. Worship is not something that is confined to an hour or two on Sunday morning. In addition, the largest part of worship is obedience. Worship is a 24/7 endeavor. Our actions, thoughts, and words make up every minute of our waking hours. Therefore, when our thoughts, words, and actions are not in tune with God’s will and Word, then we have left the action of worship. Since attendance in His assembly is a commandment, a Christian had better be worshipping God at home the same as at church, but when we forsake His house, worship has ceased (Hebrews 10:25).

Christ died for the church (Ephesians 5:32). Jesus told Peter that He is the Christ, the Son of the living  God, and that this would be the rock upon which He would build His church (Matthew 16:16-18). One third of the books of the New Testament are written to individual churches. The book of Revelation was written to seven individual churches (Revelation 2-3). The entire book of Acts is devoted to how Paul and the other Apostles started the first churches. God tells us individually how to “walk” (how to behave), and says that He has ordained that “in all churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17).

If God places so much importance on the church in the New Testament, how can we just toss it aside because someone was a hypocrite, or the congregation showed no compassion, or someone was rude?

When looking for a church, what questions do you ask yourself? Do I like the music? Are the people nice? Is the preacher boring? Are there kids my kids’ age? Have you ever considered that you are asking the wrong person the wrong questions? Instead of looking around and asking yourself questions, ask God, “Lord, is this the place you want me to serve you?” For example, maybe you have a couple of teens, but when you visit, there are no other teens in the church. Could it be that God wants you to start a teen group in that church? You won’t know until you ask God (James 4:2).

The question should always be, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” He will never have you do anything contrary to His Word. As pointed out earlier, the church is important to God’s work, and if you are a Christian, you are important to His work too. He will work through you individually and through you collectively as a church.

Time and space will not permit me to go into the details of how we can edify one another, pray with and for each other, the spiritual growth that can be obtained through classes and sermons, plus the many other benefits of a fellowship of believers.

Ok, maybe something has happened, but our first resource should always be the Lord, not our own emotions. When something happens, ask God, “Lord, how do I handle this situation.” Keep praying on that end until the Word of God gives you an answer. Maybe God allowed it to happen so you would leave that congregation, but He did not allow it to happen so you would leave His church altogether. That, as we have seen, would be against His Word.

We have all gone out to eat, and the service was bad, or the food wasn’t any good, or the atmosphere wasn’t to our liking, but every single one of us has gone out to eat again at a different restaurant. Why then would Christians not give the organization that Christ gave Himself for and commands us to serve in, less of a chance than the restaurant industry?

Preacher Johnson is Pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County Indiana. Website: www.preachers-point.com; Email: preacherspoint@gmail.com; Mail: 25 W 1200 N; Kingman IN 47952.  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Timothy-Preacher-Johnson-101171088326638. All Scripture KJV.