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05/18/2003 Entry: "Another brief thought about "church""

Just a quick one this.

I've been thinking a bit about the "going to church or not" discussion and just wanted to put in a word about the decision to leave the fellowship of one group for another.

We often talk as though this were a simple matter of an individual exercising a personal choice. Shall I buy my groceries at the supermarket or the "local shop"? Shall I stick with the Baptists or give the new independent place a try? They look like equivalent questions, but they aren't.

A church is a community. A flawed community to be sure, but a community none the less. It has more in common with a family than a shop. A church is not selling a product, but offering a relationship. Breaking relationships causes pain. It may sometimes be necessary, but it should never be done lightly, because there is always a price to be paid by someone.

In our present culture, we do not take to being told that we should sometimes bear with situations that do not seem entirely conducive to us, and many Christians are quick to jump on the consequences of rising divorce rates. Why can we not see that the same is true of our church life?