Does Going to Church Really Matter?

Deciding to Join the Community

The tradition of the church is that, barring illness or emergency, we will attend the Eucharist every week. For most people, that means one of the Sunday services. For others, though, it may mean some other Eucharist held during the week. We need that regular opportunity to come together as a worshipping community, to be renewed, to be fed with the spiritual food, and to be sent into the world to do the work we have been given to do.

The first step, then, is making a decision to join that Eucharistic community, week in and week out, regardless of how we feel at the time. We need to allow ourselves to enter into the rhythm of the Eucharist and let that rhythm form a kind of backbone to our lives. This will have a transforming effect on its own, but there are also a number of different ways we can individually enter into the Eucharist that affect our receptivity to God, others, and ourselves.