In a previous post, I brought up the idea that many people may miss more church than they realize. The attempt was not to condemn, but rather provoke us to look as see if we are regularly prioritizing things above gathering with our local church body.

To be clear, I’m not saying it’s always wrong to miss church. For many of us, there are a few select times when missing the corporate gathering of the body is unavoidable.

But I am saying we should put thought and intentionality into prioritizing the church gathering. We plan for things that are important to us, and gathering with our local church should be no different. After all, Scripture commands us to “not neglect meeting together” (Hb. 10:24-25).

Why would God command us to gather with our local church family? Because as we heard in a sermon recently: Regular absence from the gathering of the saints has ramifications for your soul.

We gather with God’s people to remember and rehearse the gospel. God is a gathering God, and he gathers his people by His Spirit through His Word that we might savor the supremacy of Jesus together. God saves not just persons but a gospel people and our corporate worship reminds us of this reality.

But it’s more than that. Regular absence from the gathering of the saints has ramifications for the souls around you.

We go to church not just to be served, but to serve. We gather with our brothers and sisters not just to show our face and ask a shallow, “Hello…how are you?” but to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” When you don’t gather with the body you miss an opportunity to build others up. So it’s not just you who misses out, but so do others.

Here are a few specific things you miss when you’re absent from a Sunday gathering:

• The chance to show gospel hospitality to visitors and guests.
• The chance to encourage a fellow brother or sister with a timely word or passage of Scripture.
• The chance to pray with a fellow member about specific hardship.
• The chance to sing God’s praises with your covenant members.
• The chance to collectively pray alongside your fellow saints.
• The chance to actively listen and submit to God’s preached word.
• The chance to serve in children’s ministry and tell the gospel to children.
• The chance to meet a visitor another member has met and wants to introduce to you because of some commonality.
• The chance to share the gospel with an unbeliever who’s asking questions after the service.
• The chance to follow up with that visitor you met a few weeks ago.
• The chance to go to lunch after service and talk about how you were encouraged or challenged or convicted or comforted by the gathering.
• The chance to picture and participate in a foretaste of heaven – a redeemed people gathered together encouraging one another and worshipping Jesus.

When, by God’s grace, we see each church gathering with this level of real spiritual significance, we don’t see ourselves merely as part of an organization called ‘Restoration Church’, but as servants of God’s people, eager to meet the needs of others even if it means sacrificing our own.

When, by God’s grace, we see church this way we see ourselves as a blood-bought family that regularly gathers around the feast of God’s Word so that we might worship God together as we communicate and celebrate the hope of the gospel.

And who would want to miss that?