Can You Love Jesus Without Loving The Church?

We are all too familiar with the negative stereotypes of church, and many young adults who grew up in the church drop out for a period of time, many never to return.  Some Christians decide to live their faith apart from the church, while many who do not follow Jesus refuse to consider Christianity because of the issues they see in the church.

We can all share stories of failings and hurt caused by the church, but this episode asks a deeper question: Despite all of the misgivings we have about church – some valid and some that should be challenged – is there any way to follow Jesus without being part of the local church?  We share our own stories of being away from the church and the struggles we have had while we have been part of a church.  We also point out some of the ways the American culture has shaped our experiences of church, and we evaluate the different expressions of Christian community that we might gravitate toward if we are not sure we want to belong to the local church.   While we validate so many of the misgivings about church that many have shared, we end by focusing on God’s intent for the church, a perspective that is not often considered when we ask why membership in the local body of Christ is so central to faithfully following Jesus.

Discussion Questions:

When you hear some of the statistics about people’s negative attitudes about church, do those resonate with your experience?  Do you have different experiences?  Where has your experience been more positive, and where has it overlapped with some of the negative characteristics that people share with researchers?

Do you know friends or peers who have been away from the church for some time, and whose faith seems to become something different the longer they are away from the church? 

Are you someone who has stayed away from the church, or even stayed away from Christianity, because of the issues you have seen in the church?  Would this be descriptive of the majority of your friends and peers, or would they be more likely to attend a church?

At the other end of the spectrum, do you know people whose entire lives are lived within the church, and who are suspicious of anyone or anything that isn’t part of their church community.

When you think about the church, what comes to mind?  An institution?  A building?  A community? A family?  A club? Does it take work to see the local church as the body of Christ, of which he is the head, and an integral part of what the New Testament repeatedly describes as us being “in Christ.”

Have you considered how much of a privilege it is to freely belong to a church body, or to start a church community, where so many believers in other cultures have to risk their lives to meet in churches that faithfully follow Jesus?

What features of the church in America do you observe are influenced by the culture?  Have you seen an over-emphasis in American Christianity toward an individual relationship with Jesus, and does that make it more likely that we can live apart from the body of Christ and believe we can faithfully follow Jesus without any other community?  Is the endless amount of choice and the ability to shop churches to meet our exact specifications an example of the influence of American culture on the body of Christ?

John talks about the way that even the physical location in which the church meets will influence how we respond in church.  How have you observed the building in which the church meets having a forming effect on those who attend that church?

Are you someone who has stayed away from the church because of hurt that you have experienced at the hands of other believers?  Have you felt the gravitational pull that often keeps us from going back, or keeps extending the time that we are away?  What steps have you taken to seek healing and to find a way back to God’s intent for us to be part of the community of faith?  What one idea could you take from this episode to help you in that process?

Are the verses that John shared about God’s intent for the church something that you have considered before?  Does this give you a different perspective on God’s intent for the church that might differ from the perspective that many of us have about the role of the church in the life of the believer?