Engaging Church

Following is part 2 of my interview with Jim Samra, author of the new book, The Gift of Church: How God Designed the Local Church to Meet Our Needs as Christians. Read part 1 here. – AR

EC: Are pastors and church leadership teams not pushing church membership, attendance and gathering as a community to meet with God and celebrate – as much as they have in the past?  Why not?

 JS: There seems to be two factors at work here.  1) Some in church leadership are just as confused as lay people in recognizing the value of the church.  I know because for years I was unsure about the value of church.  I did church because it seemed like the right thing to do, but I didn’t have any way to articulate “why church”?  When I didn’t feel confident about the answer to this question, I certainly didn’t want to try to answer it for other people.  Nothing in my evangelical heritage or training had prepared me to answer that question.  It took writing a dissertation on the subject before I began to understand the value of church.  2) The second factor is that no one wants to seem self-serving.  For a pastor to stand up and preach church attendance sounds like he is only out for what is in his best interests.

These are two of the reasons I wrote this book.  First, to try to explain why God intends church participation as a gift. Second, to allow pastors to have someone else articulate to their people why participating in church is so important.

 Jim Samra is the senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His new book, The Gift of Church: How God Designed the Local Church to Meet Our Needs as Christians, tackles the question often asked of Christians today: “Why Bother with Church?”

 Following is part 1 of a 2-part interview. The second installment is available here. - AR

EC: Why does God want us to assemble – how is church a gift to meet our needs?

JS: In my book, The Gift of Church, I highlight six ways that participating in a church meets very real needs we have as Christians.  Briefly, these are:

1) Church allows us to experience God’s presence in unique and powerful ways; 2) Church is where God brings unity out of diversity in Christ; 3) Church provides us with true community to overcome the loneliness we experience as a result of the effects of sin; 4) The church is designed by God to help Christians grow and mature; 5) Church is able to accomplish more for the kingdom of God than would be possible as individuals; and 6) The church makes visible the invisible Jesus allowing the world to see Him.