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  [The following is excerpted from the book, Gather: Getting to the Heart of Going to Church, Copyright © 2021 by M. Hopson Boutot. Click here to download the entire book for free.]   

Faithful church attendance encourages your fellow members. I’ve been attending church regularly since before I was born. And nearly every church I can remember had at least one person who took great pains to gather with God’s people. Michael often rode his bicycle to church, even in bad weather, because he didn’t have a driver’s license. Claudette sang “How Great Thou Art” on the same concrete slab where her husband used to preach, before the earthquake killed him. Every time Charles entered the church building, he was reminded of his wife who used to attend with him before she passed away. Elli was pushed into the sanctuary in her wheelchair. Steve was in excruciating pain nearly every worship service. Yet these saints, and many others, endured great pains to faithfully gather with God’s people.

Men and women like this are a constant source of encouragement to me. If they’re able to faithfully gather despite painful circumstances beyond my imagination, what credible reasons do I have to stay home? Is it possible that my poor excuses to gather with God’s people are discouraging to those who risk so much to attend? Could my very presence be an encouragement to them to continue?

For those of you who are parents and grandparents, I’d encourage you to consider another group of people who will certainly be encouraged by your faithful attendance (or discouraged by the lack of it): your children and grandchildren. They are watching. They are learning what you value. And no matter how much you say you love Jesus, they’re learning a very different lesson every time you choose something else above gathering with His people. Kevin DeYoung pulls no punches when he writes, "The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.”[1]

[1] Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap Between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 132.