This is the church you run to By Robin Schumacher, for The Christian Post
It’s easy to criticize church leadership. Very easy.
Every time I start to mount that horse, I’m reminded of the fact that I’ve never walked one day in their shoes, with a verse from Paul coming to mind: “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4).
So when I look at studies showing the consistent decline in church attendance, rather than compile a laundry list of complaints as to why that might be, I decided instead to think back to a time when I was so drawn to church that I literally ran to it as often as I could. I came up with four particular, positive attributes that sparked my desire to be there every time the doors swung open.
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Where Bible exposition is center stage
As a believer, I’m constantly hungry for God’s food, which comes from His Word. Like Peter says, all Christians, “long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2).
The church I ran to was one where the Bible took center stage and was preached in expositional style. If I came without my Bible, I was handicapped as the message was preached; I couldn’t take notes in its margins and any nuggets of gold mined from it were mostly lost.
Every time I learned a new truth that came from the exposition of Scripture, I left on cloud nine – something I still experience today when I listen to great Bible teachers during my gym workouts. What happens is the glory of God – His “weightiness” which is what the Greek term for “glory” means – grows bigger inside me.
John MacArthur puts it like this: “What glorifies God is the exposition of scripture. Let me tell you very simply why. In the Bible God is revealed. God’s glory is on display through the biblical record. God puts himself on display in scripture. The preacher then has one clear compelling duty and that is to display the glory of God by the exposition of scripture.”
Where you fellowship with hungry believers
I remember a friend of mine years ago talking about how he and his wife, in addition to attending our church, kept adding more Bible studies to their weekly schedule. He looked at me and said, “We just can’t get enough!”
Talk about a living, breathing example of the love for God.
