June 09, 2002

Why Go To Church?

Someone wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made n6 sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now, " he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3, 000 sermons. But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time and the ministers are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all. Why not let them give counseling or help the disadvantaged or do something else constructive?"

This started a real controversy in the "Letter to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone else wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32, 000 meals. But for the life of me, I can not recall the entire menu of a single one of those meals. But I do know this they all nourished me and gave me the physical strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today! Thank God for our physical and spiritual nourishment."

-from Cedar Grove Church of Christ, Georgia