I’ve had some bad experiences with church, so why should I give Christianity another chance?

Firstly, I am so sorry if this has been your experience. It is a sad reality that church hurt is one of the most common objections to Christianity. If you (or a loved one) have witnessed or experienced hypocrisy, unkindness, abuse, betrayal, fraud, or humiliation at the hands of church-goers, I am so sorry. That should not have happened. Church is meant to be a safe place where people are loved and accepted, and if your experience was different, I can understand that must have been deeply disappointing and discouraging, especially if it happened more than once.

One of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith is that all people are broken and deeply flawed. Jesus once said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus came for messed-up, broken people. He is the friend of sinners. And when sinners come to faith in Christ and receive forgiveness, it doesn’t put a stop to their potential to sin.

This may come as a surprise to people who have the impression that Christianity is for perfect people. It’s not. The Church is a bunch of misfits. Sometimes even Christians fall into the trap of thinking they need to make themselves out to be perfect when they’re not. Jesus is not pleased with hypocrisy. And if any Christian has ever claimed moral superiority over you, they were mistaken.

But if you stick around and get to know us over the long-term, we hope you’ll see the transformation that Jesus is working in each of us who have trusted in Him for forgiveness. This side of heaven, we will never achieve the standard of moral perfection set by our Saviour, Jesus. But we’re not who we once were. He is making all things new.

If you have fallen out with a church due to a negative experience, it is worth considering whether those encounters were with one or two people or with the whole church. Were there other people in the church, besides those who hurt you, who loved you, encouraged you and prayed for you? Are you willing to hold the whole church in condemnation, and in the process, cut yourself off from other precious relationships, when in fact, your bitterness might be misplaced? The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ brings reconciliation and healing and builds community in ways that you might never have imagined possible.

Lastly, if you were hurt by someone who claimed to be a Christian in a way that constitutes abuse, please know that the Lord Jesus stands defiantly against abuse in all its forms. Know that justice will be done and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Please do contact our church office if you would like to speak to a member of the pastoral team about your experience.

I believe in God, but what's the point of church?

If I have a personal relationship with God, why do I need to attend a local church? After all, some of the best Bible teaching and worship is live-streamed on Sundays from churches all over the world. Why can’t I just stay at home and enjoy these online ministries?

From earliest times Christians have maintained that God does not save people from sin without also saving them into the local church. For example, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (248-258) famously said, “outside the church there is no salvation” (Letters 73.21). D.L. Moody, the American evangelist and author declared, “Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.” And more recently John Stott wrote, “I hope none of my readers is that grotesque anomaly, an unchurched Christian. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very centre of the eternal purpose of God” (The Living Church).

But what lies behind their convictions? Simply put, the Bible.

God’s Word in the New Testament pictures the Christian life as a community project.  We are bound together. We are variously described as the flock of Christ (Luke 12:32), the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5), and God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16).

But perhaps the most striking image of all is of Christians as the body of Christ. It is an image that pictures not only our dependence on the head, the Lord Jesus, but also our dependence on one another. This is the argument that the apostle Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12:12 where he says, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”

Elsewhere Paul uses the language of a man and women being joined together in marriage to describe Christians in a local church being “joined together” to become a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:21). This understanding of the local church is what lies behind nearly 60 “one another” statements in the New Testament. For example, believers are to “love one another” (Romans 13:8), “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:18), “pray for one another” (James 5:16). And it’s only in the local church where believers can experience true “fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7).

But above all, Christians gather together in the local church to be taught God’s Word in community. Hebrews 10:25 commands us not to give up meeting together, which in the context refers to the formal gathering of God’s people for Bible teaching and worship.

The point is that when we meet at church to sit under God’s Word, I know what you have heard and you know what I have heard. There is a loving accountability between us for the way that we respond that is missing when I listen to sermon downloads by myself at home. Sitting under God’s Word together and responding in worship together is God’s life-support system for every believer.

You can’t have a groom without a bride. Christ is our bridegroom. He loves His bride, the local church. And so must we. Not in theory or from a distance. But in person, in the flesh, every week for our good and for God’s glory.