FAQs

Is it wrong that I don’t want to go to church anymore after being mistreated at my old church?

The Bible clearly says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” (Hebrews 10:25). This is often interpreted as, “Thou shalt go to church,” but that isn’t what it says. It says don’t stop getting together. The only criteria for “getting together” is that there be more than one person. Get two or three and Jesus said he would be there (Matthew 18:20).

However, I believe this implies more than just sitting at Starbucks and talking about the latest gossip. There are specific biblical reasons for getting together, the most important of which are in the same passage in Hebrews 10—Spur one another toward love and good deeds (verse 24), which is stated as a way of holding unswervingly to the hope we profess (verse 23), and encourage one another (verse 25).

The early church is described in Acts 2:42-47 as built around several activities—absorbing the apostles teaching, assisting those in the church who were in need, praising God and eating together. Of all these activities given in Acts and Hebrews, only two happen very often in traditional church meetings—teaching and praise. And even those don’t require such meetings, though teaching is probably easier in a group setting. Besides teaching is actually supposed to be a very small part of the life of a church. In fact, the whole concept of modern church, which seats the congregation as an audience watching a show, mitigates against the kind of fellowship that characterized the early church.

So if you are not attending a church, are you actually missing anything of New Testament importance? If the church does not encourage active involvement with other members of the congregation outside of those meetings, away from the control and scrutiny of the leadership, then you’re probably not missing much when you’re not there.

When you encounter a crisis, do you first call friends in the church, trusting them enough to open up your deepest feelings and fears without concern about whether or not they will be discreet and non-judgmental? If not, then you probably cannot call your church experience fellowship, and you probably aren’t missing much if you aren’t there.

Ultimately, the question to ask is whether or not you are intimately involved in a genuine and healthy community of believers. If the reason you don’t want to go to church is because that sense of community is missing, then it is understandable that you would not want to go, whether you’ve been mistreated or not.

The community is extremely important. In fact, it is the defining characteristic of genuine church. And community is not structured to any particular order of service or to any specific meeting time. There is nothing wrong with structure. It gives everyone a schedule so they know when the others are assembling. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s not the defining thing, either. I find it interesting that Malachi 3:16 says that God heard and listened when his people talked to each other. It was in the interaction of the believers that they found God.

So, if you are not in church, the question really becomes, are you seeking that fellowship? If you are, you will find that divine connections occur in some odd places, occasionally even in church services.

To get back to the original question, is it wrong to not want to go to church after being mistreated? Instead of presenting the question in terms of right and wrong, I suggest that the lack of enthusiasm should be viewed as an  indicator that community is lacking. Use it as an incentive to seek what is missing. The search might take you back into a traditional church setting, or it might take you into some other form of assembly such as a home church, or a regular meeting with neighbors or friends where you share spiritual life with one another. If that meeting is at Starbucks, then so be it. Either way, the fellowship is important, and the setting for that fellowship should provide opportunity for every person to bring something of value for the others (1 Corinthians 14:26).

That’s real community. I suspect that when you find that, going to church will no longer be a problem. In fact, you probably won’t even think of it in terms of going or not going. It will be meeting with close friends for mutual growth.