Who Needs the Church, Anyways?

     When I first started out in my journey with Christ, I was convinced I had found the best church, the best music, and the best people. While this was a great season for me, a sense of superiority began to creep in and over time a prideful exclusivity crept into my life. Eventually came to realize that I had developed a way of thinking opposite of the Gospel and the nature Christ displayed.
     Fast forward a few years… After serving my church as the youth pastor for 14+ years my wife and I felt the call to plant a church out here in Maple Valley. I remember thinking that I wanted to build something more than a place that people come to hear a great message. I wanted an atmosphere that felt like a family of real people. A place, message and a culture that would apply to real life. A church that meets real needs, considers real questions, and makes sense in the world lived both in and outside of the church-going culture.
     What I’ve found over the last 13 years is that the core values found in the scriptures stem from a spirit of love. God is love, and when we love others it opens the door to experience that love. And that love is most easily found in a Christ-like community. Twenty years ago, people would come to church every week to learn, sing, and leave happy. Today we can learn and sing along with the world’s best listening to our I-Pods or by streaming live church services on the internet. We used to save up all our spiritual questions for Sunday and ask the pastor, but now we can Google them on our phone. We can also have our own personal devotional time. So this causes many of us to ask the question, “Why even have churches then?”
     Community. This is one thing you can’t get from an iPod. Community is the face-to-face interaction, the conversation and the personal relationship that touches your soul. It’s more than social networking can do – it’s doing life together. Having a church family is like expanding the ways God can bring love into your life. It’s a place where you get more than a religious experience or a get-out-of-hell-free card. It’s a place where you are needed, wanted, and celebrated. The church family is a safety net for some, accountability for others and the mission and cause for us all.
     We all know this, but it’s when we really need our church family that we realize how valuable this community really is. I remember so well the day we needed to share a struggle that we had going on with one of our 3 sons. We couldn’t handle it on our own, so we turned to our church family and they embraced us, prayed and reached in to help us successfully navigate that difficult season. We got through that season largely because of their support. We felt humbled and loved. Last week I sat with a group of 12 people who gathered around a lady in our church. She has a rare form of cancer and is facing many tough decisions and difficult treatments. As we prayed, hugged, cried, and laughed, her response was “I love my church family; it’s what keeps me going.”
     I spend a lot of time with the local pastors in our area. We pray together, share our victories, failures, frustrations, pains and our ideas with each other. In so many ways we are all very different, whether it be in our theology, philosophy or style. We’ve been doing this together for 12 years, and the thing that brings us together is our love for God and the Church, and for each other. This is the kind of love that comes from God through community. I believe there is something innate in each of us that craves this.
     What if you were to find a local church family where the love of God was present? Somewhere, some place there is a church community that is missing a member, that when they arrive, will bring to that community what they need and that member may be you.

Pastor Steve

Steve Murray is the pastor of Real Life Church – A community of real people who love God and do life together. RLC currently meets at Kentlake High School.