Why should I bother with church? (Pt 1)

At a recent a ‘Question Time’ panel discussion at St Mary’s someone asked ‘if I can experience God more fully or more frequently in other places (such as at a concert or on a country walk) why go to church or encourage other people to do so?’

I would like to address this question in two parts:

1. The purposes of going to Church beyond an encounter with God
2. A Biblical perspective on spiritual experiences

… and I am going tackle these subjects in reverse order (Part 2 comes at Christmas!)

What is a Spiritual Experience?

The Alister Hardy Society has been in the forefront of collecting stories of spiritual or religious experiences. The Chair of the Society, Jonathan Robinson wrote: ‘I do not believe we should attempt to define the word ‘spiritual. Practically every person will give a different description of what they feel the word ‘spiritual’ means.’ This might be true but it is rather frustrating!

William James attempted to outline some characteristics of religious experiences; he suggested they were transient, insightful and accidental… and indescribable. I offer the simple phrase rich moments: we are aware of being taken out of ourselves, or of the sense of another presence, or of a deeper appreciation of the world around us, or being moved within ourselves. Something deeper happens in or to us that we did not begin.

Alister Hardy began to collect stories of such rich moments. He believed that most people have spiritual experiences – although they might not often talk about them. Some occur in religious contexts – worship (including music and dancing), prayer and meditation – but others altogether elsewhere such as in the rock concert or mountainside walk.

Is every Spiritual Experience an Encounter with God?

While I would want to include a great number of these rich moments as points at which we somehow touch God (or he touches us) – it cannot be that every experience is genuinely an encounter with the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In particular there are numerous occasions when people have contrived experiences, trying to conjure up God: Henry James for example took various drugs to induce a ‘spiritual state.’

But the Bible teaches that everyone is touched by God – “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen…” Romans 1:20. A Godly rich moment is a point of connection. But we should be asking of the feeling of connection – ‘is this the living God’?

How might we seek God?

By God’s grace he is looking for us and we can meet him, often unexpectedly. We sense that thrill, or movement of our spirit that is his touch.

But it is also by his grace, that we have been provided with established situations in which we are more likely to be quickened spiritually, and more certain that it is him we are encountering. The most obvious and tested:

• reflecting on the Bible, and personal prayer
• public worship, Christian teaching, and Holy Communion
• conversation and prayer with other believers

So I would encourage everyone to look for God’s presence in their world, but to build their lives around the core spiritual ‘times and places’, I have mentioned above.

But we need to be humble; God will speak or act when he chooses. We cannot manipulate him. So it may be that there are times when our religious life seems less promising.

At those times we need to know that there is more to being part of the church than encountering God. Then we will continue for other reasons…