Is church necessary in this day and age?

Dear Chaplain: I watch my favorite ministers online and I listen to a lot of gospel music throughout the day. I’m always there to help people out and I try to do the things God would want me to do. Church doesn’t seem necessary to me in this day and age. Do people really need to go to church?

Signed, Church at Home

Dear Church at Home: Thank you so much for your question. When God created us he put us in families. God knew as babies, toddlers and children, we couldn’t fend for ourselves. Therefore multiple people, mostly family, would be needed to care for us. As we became adults and self sufficient, we didn’t just abandon our families, their emotional and spiritual support was still needed as we found ourselves navigating through the ups and downs of life. As we grow old and become the seniors of our families, once again we may not be able to fend for ourselves and may possibly need the physical support of the younger generation; but we still have a significant role of being a source of wisdom and guidance in the family. In other words, from the day we’re born until the day we die, it’s obvious that God saw we needed to maintain physical, spiritual, and emotional connections with our families (be it biological, adoptive, or otherwise). Even Jesus, the son of God, was born into a family. It’s recorded at his birth that his mother, father, and others were there caring for him. As a teen, the Bible tells us Jesus’ parents were still concerned about his whereabouts and well being. And as an adult, Jesus’ mother (Mary), brothers (James, Jude and Simon) and cousins (Elizabeth and John the Baptist) were significant in his life’s journey, as well as his ministry. Jesus was supported by the physical presence of his earthly family, as well as his church family (the disciples and early believers) until his death. There at the foot of the cross stood his mother and his co laborer in the Lord, the beloved disciple John, until the moment Jesus died.

So how does this relate? Well, like our physical birth, when we’re spiritually born (by accepting Jesus in our hearts as our Lord and Savior) the next step is joining a church family, or a body of believers for corporate worship, support, fellowship, growth and service, similar to our earthly families. This isn’t a new tradition, but how God led the first Christians who became believers, and were then baptized, and joined the group of those following Christ, who were eventually called the church. In the book of Acts, chapter 2, it says, “...and the Lord added to them day by day”, and the church grew. Also in Acts 2:44 it says, “all who believed were together and had all things in common”, letting us know they were physically together, caring for and supporting each other, praying, worshiping, and serving God in the same place. And Hebrews 10:25 reminds us today, to “forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more,

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