“Do I have to go to church?”

Steve Brown:
“Do I have to go to church?” The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus in the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Steve, you have to go to church. I may not need to.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s true. You know, there’s, I know you’re joking around, but boy, I really do. If I don’t go for one Sunday, I know it. If I don’t go for two Sundays, my friends know it. And if I don’t go for three Sundays, everybody knows it.

Pete Alwinson:
Everybody knows it.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that. I’m going to use that. Probably tomorrow.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way. Check out ForgeTruth.com and that podcast is something you’ll enjoy. It’s really a fun time. But there’s a lot of stuff there that you’ll find helpful. And if you’re a guy, I don’t think you accept women, do you? It’s kind of like my barbershop. They won’t let them come in there.

Pete Alwinson:
But we have a lot of women that watch us online, I heard.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, they do.

Pete Alwinson:
They don’t come, but they watch us.

Steve Brown:
If you’re living in Central Florida, close to Orlando, there are a number of places where Forge meets, and it’s really a great time. You might want to check it out and be a part of that. As you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions together. And we really do love to get your questions. You can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

in Canada, it’s

P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and anytime you’re near a phone, 24 7, if you have a question, pick it up and dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE follow instructions and record your question. And sometimes we put that on the air. And those are places, by the way, should the spirit move, you could help us financially. If you can, please do. We’ll be faithful and squeeze every dime for the glory of God. We’re a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Those are organizations that look over our books to make sure that we’re ethical, and we are. We’ll use your gift to help other people. And if you can’t, we understand that, too. Do say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you pray for us, and then we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Father, we thank you today for your goodness, always, and your mercy and your kindness. And as we get to the end of this week, we recognize that we have been helped by you more than we even know. Thank you for the times that we get to spend with you in the morning in prayer and reading your word. Thank you for how that shapes our mind and energizes our soul. We thank you for how you continue to speak to us through your word and through the encouragement of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we do thank you for your church. And pray that you would bless your church. Father, we do pray that you’d lift up our leaders as they get ready and put the finishing touches on their sermons and messages for this week. Lord, we pray that we would worship you in spirit and in truth, and that by your power, you would use our leaders, protect them from the evil one and speak to us through them. And now, we thank you for Q&A, thanks for Steve and all the crew here at Key Life. We pray that you would bless them and use this ministry. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to the phone lines.

Caller 1:
If you do not feel comfortable going to church, is it okay to praise God at your home? Is it a sin, and will I go to hell for not going to church?

Steve Brown:
Probably, but if you send your tithe, you can get away with it.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man! Oh man! Over the edge!

Steve Brown:
You know, that, I get what he’s saying. I really do. I really understand. No, you don’t go to hell if you don’t go to church. You know, there was a time when church was a hassle to me when I was a kid. Even through college, but today to say you don’t have to go to church is almost like saying you don’t have to eat a steak dinner, or you don’t have to get a milkshake, or you don’t have to, you know, it’s something that I honestly, and it sounds pious. I really dig go into church and I don’t even like all those people.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m calling you pastor right now. That’s good.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, and I think that’s true with most Christians. And I think there are those, and books have been written about it recently, of people who have been hurt or abused by the church. I understand that. I get that. And if I can understand it, Jesus understands it.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right.

Steve Brown:
But give us, what does the Scripture say?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, Hebrews, the Hebrews 10:25 passage where Paul’s warning the Hebrew Christians, the Jewish Christians, saying, don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Which is the habit of some, but all the more, as you see the day drawing near, we, I think the culture was so bad back then, and there was so much persecution. We really need to be together and we need to, we need to worship, we need to have some friends at church. You know, one thing I detected in what this brother said, I don’t know if it’s there or not, but I, two of the young men that I’ve talked to recently that are in our ministry, have said that they struggle with anxiety and a lot of younger people struggle with anxiety more than maybe my generation, our generation. And that may well be and may well be one reason why going to church is difficult for them. And I, and so one of the guys I know is doing it

Steve Brown:
creates anxiety

Pete Alwinson:
creates anxiety, people anxiety. And it would probably be good to explore that with your pastors or with a counselor with a good friend and to maybe figure, try to figure that out. But it’s more for us. I like how you put it. Church is really like ice cream. It’s for us rather than, and we need it.

Steve Brown:
Oh, we do. And it’s surprisingly, I understand people’s anxiety.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
But the solution is the church.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it is.

Steve Brown:
Don’t run from the one place that can fix that, and it really should when the church is functioning properly.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Churches, you know, church, I know what’s wrong with the church. You do too. I mean, when Augustine said she’s a prostitute, but she’s my mother, I get that.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
But the church has accepted me when others wouldn’t. They’ve told me about forgiveness. They’ve given me comfort when I was afraid. They helped me get courage.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And it’s kind of a hospital. And to say, I don’t want to go when you’re sick is wrong because that’s the place where the medicine is.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. And even in a moderately sized church, you’re going to find somebody that you connect with, even.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Even if some, and you know, the idea there’s hypocrites everywhere and we’re unintentional hypocrites. We, a lot of times we are hypocrites as Christians. We don’t want to be, but sometimes we are. No perfect people in a church, but we need the church.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Except the pastor. Then, then of course he is.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Go to church. It really isn’t. And listen, if you’re a legalist and you’ve got those medals for church or Sunday school attendance that go all the way down to the floor and you’re quite proud of yourself. Next Sunday, don’t go to church. It’ll be good for you. This is and e- mail. What’s the meaning of love, brotherly love, agape, etc? You know, let me tell you. Go to Google, just Google C. S. Lewis Four Loves. That’s one of the best, it was sermons that he gave and then they published it as a book. And it’s a small book and it’s helpful. Because in the Greek, they’re more than one word. We have one word for love, and that can mean what the world needs now is love, sweet love. Or it can mean what the world needs now is lust, sweet lust, or whatever. You know, we have one word to match that, and as this person has insinuated, what is agape?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s this idea of an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. And that’s the kind of love that God has for us, which is just, it’s stunning. And I’ve never gotten over that. There are days where I don’t think about it too much. And then, more and more you, I know me and I wouldn’t have loved me, but he did and he does.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. What about philia?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, you know, the idea of, you know, brotherly love or friendly, friendship kind of love. Now, sometimes those were used interchangeably, agape and philia, it seems to me in the New Testament, but what spin would you put on?

Steve Brown:
No, I’d say exactly what you just said. They are sometimes interchangeable, but there are implications that go beyond with each word. Philadelphia, for instance, the city of brotherly love.

Pete Alwinson:
So, there’s a sense of kindness toward other people.

Steve Brown:
What about storge?

Pete Alwinson:
Storge, I don’t know. I can’t remember.

Steve Brown:
Well, that means the way you love your cigar, if you smoke cigars. You know, it covers a lot of things, like, I like spaghetti. What was the fourth one?

Pete Alwinson:
I, you know, agape, philia, we come on, we know this, storge and I can’t think of it right now.

Steve Brown:
Well, we’ll think of it as soon as the broadcast comes to the end, we’ll. And if you really want to know, Google C.S. Lewis.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, it’s eros, it’s eros.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
The sexual love, sexual love.

Steve Brown:
Well, when you get old, you don’t think about that as much. That’s the word from which we get erotic. And so, those are the four loves. But you’ll, C.S. Lewis talking about that is one of the most profound things that you as a Christian will read. And you’ll be glad that you read it. Let’s see if I can get a, do you believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Pete Alwinson:
We do. We do. It’s commanded in Philippians. All right. And be filled with the Spirit and many fillings. And in the morning I need to be filled because I leak.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, right. Hit him again, Lord. He leaks.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
What, is that the same thing as the baptism of the Spirit?

Pete Alwinson:
One baptism, we believe, I Corinthians 10:13 or 12:13. One baptism of the Spirit and many fillings.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Hopefully continual filling.

Steve Brown:
Did you ever listen to Bill Bright, the late Bill Bright, and his How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
It was really a, it was some very practical teaching and it was quite simple. He said, you breathe out, he called it spiritual breathing. You breathe out, that’s your sin, and you breathe in the Holy Spirit by faith. And my wife said and told him that that lecture changed her life.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s great.

Steve Brown:
And it will.

Pete Alwinson:
It will.

Steve Brown:
Okay. You could also read my book on the Holy Spirit, Follow the Wind.

Pete Alwinson:
Follow the Wind.

Steve Brown:
One of the truly great classics.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
If you believe that.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s a great book.

Steve Brown:
We’ve got to go before it gets too deep. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.