Carter Benjamin Lam

For the past few generations of Christians, particularly those of us in the United States, it has become increasingly popular to distance ourselves from the instituted local Church. According to research published by the Pew Research Center on January 14, 2021, 60-65% of the American adult population are Christian, yet only 25-30% attend a religious service at least once per week. (I say “religious service” because the published research did not report numbers specifically for Christian Church service attendance. So, I will suggest that the proportion who attend Church at least once per week may be lower than 25%.)

Never before, in any place, has there been such a large gap between the proportion of people who identify as Christian and the proportion who remain engaged with the local Church. This reality is the result of many social, political, and religious factors that have collaborated with great complexity over the last few decades. But one of the primary factors is the growth of (what I would call) a hyperindividualistic approach to Christianity—an approach that leads to the isolation of the individual.

I have some ideas about the origins of this approach and how it became so popular in the U.S., but none of that matters right now. What matters is that, however we might try to spin it or whatever reasons we might give for adopting this mindset, it is always destructive to the faith and well-being of the individual to become hyperindividualistic. This might sound counterintuitive, but it’s true. Christianity can never be, “just my Bible and me,” or, “just Jesus and me.” There is no such thing as a lone wolf Christian, because in short time after committing to it, the person would become more wolf-like than Christ-like.

All of this, so far, is to say that each individual Christian needs the Church. Christians need to meet in fellowship with one another. Christians need to be refreshed with the Holy Spirit in order to endure each coming week. Christians need to be regularly and frequently fed the grace of God. This grace comes to us through the proclaimed Gospel of God, as found in the Scriptures, and through the Sacraments, which Jesus himself has given to us. All these gifts—fellowship, the Holy Spirit, and the grace of God—are found within the congregation (the coming together) of God’s people. The Church provides many other good things for the Christian, but those three cannot be found together in any other place.

Please, let me be clear: what I’m writing is not an argument against personal devotion. Personal devotion and piety are great blessings from God, and are certainly worthy of our continual pursuit, but they are no substitute for attending Church and receiving the gifts that are given to the Christian through the Church. This is also not an argument against a healthy dose of individualism, which leads the person to embrace his or her uniqueness and refine the specific gifts and interests that he or she has been given. Rather, I am arguing that a mindset which leads a Christian to neglect the gifts of fellowship, the Holy Spirit, and the grace of God will result in the destruction of that Christian’s faith. We cannot sustain our faith by ourselves, and that’s because we didn’t get our faith from ourselves in the first place.

All of us are much more needy and dependent than we would ever care to admit. The thing is, the Church is the only place on earth where this reality is both fully recognized and sufficiently remedied by the fact that Christ is the sole fulfillment of our needs.

The Church is both a divine institution and a human institution. It is divine because it has been built by God himself (refer to I Corinthians 3). It is human because, ever since Jesus’ ascension, the Church on earth has been led by men—not by men alone, for the Holy Spirit is with us, but nonetheless by men. Because the Church is a human institution, it is prone to corruption and all kinds of sin, and this raises concern from a lot of us. I know that the Church is full of sinners, hypocrites, and disagreeable people—I am one of them. And you’re also one of them. Well, you’re one of us. In any case, let us all show mercy and grace to one another, because God has given each of us an immeasurably great deal of mercy and grace in Jesus.

Christ be with us as we continue to meet and grow in fellowship, the Holy Spirit, and the grace of God.