WHY UNREGENERATED
CHURCH MEMBERS ATTEND CHURCH
ARTICLE
The following was taken from an article published in a Christian magazine around 2010. I no longer recall the name of the magazine, nor the author’s name, but I did deem it an interesting read and saved what I had written down; I felt it would do well here to give it here in the article I am writing.
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“Americans believe in a vanished golden age when people attended church regularly, families were cohesive, virtue reigned triumphant—and that belonging to a church was a central part of life.
In America, people go to nominal Protestant churches, seeking to make connection between the symbols of the faith and the stuff of everyday life. In every form of human belonging, there is the tension between me as an individual and “me as a part of a group.” (like church). People go to a church building with church people to be in touch with God. Here are some statistics for church going in America today: 71% belong to a church; 37% say they at least attend weekly services; and 83% attended church or Sunday School three times a month when they were young children.
People basically long for the security of the past golden age. Unfortunately, this longing is for peaceful feelings of religion and religious community. Attendees have some vague need to be connected with something that
transcends self. They also have a sense of obligation to be decent to their fellow man. Without church, they feel bereft of shelter, instruction, hope, voice and connections of any meaningful religious community. People want a loving community where they can find help to have meaning in their lives.”
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Man was created to fellowship and commune with God. Man was created to glorify God. Within every man, there exists the innate knowing in his conscience and soul that there is a God. Furthermore, he knows that
this God is his creator and that He deserves worship. A person has to quell this innate,
God given, spiritual and moral faculty given him by God in order to reject his Creator and say there is no God. (Ps. 19:1-3; Rom. 1:18-20, 2:11-16)
After the fall, man lost his relationship with God and became separated from God. Consequently, man was left with a horrible void in his heart. He was left with an innate need for God.
Every man’s heart has been designed to experience that vital God given need to worship his Creator and experience God’s love in his heart. He tries to fill this void and satisfy this need in vain and futile ways. Every man, recognizing his condition, seeks to fill the void of his religious need. Unfortunately, he may not want to surrender his heart and life to Christ so that he might be regenerated and redeemed. He has a problem; there is a void in his heart that only Christ can fill, but he doesn’t want to give his life to Christ. He wants to be king and lord of his own life. Either he doesn’t believe in God or he simply wants God to serve him. He thinks he has discovered the answer, “Why not fill the void with religion? This way I can round out my life, and remain king and lord of my own life.” He believes church will round out his life and his need can be satisfied with religion. With the appropriate God words on his lips, he attends church.
Most unregenerate people attend church to soothe their conscience, attempt to find shelter and belonging in a religious community—and hopefully round out their lives with some Rotary Club short of religion and acquire religious credits for their use in the future when they die.
God, however, intends something very different and very special for us. God wants to redeem our souls, give us the new birth and the new life, then lavish the ladles of His love into our new hearts, as it bathes our once parched souls with His grace. For more on how this new life can become yours, and how God will enable you to walk in it, please go to our True Salvation page.