Is Church worth attending in 2024? In the 2020 separation, natural and spiritual, one-third or more decided the Church was no longer worth attending. I agree with a few that they weren't attending a worthwhile one. We are getting more and more churches that aren't worth getting up early Sunday morning to participate in a worship service that is more entertainment and not true worship that is in spirit and truth. Then we move on to a Ted Talk, an influencer, or a life coach that teaches us how to succeed in this life but not how to hear, well done, good and faithful servant at the end of our journey.

I have wondered over the past year if my Church is worth attending. I often do self-analysis, so don't get concerned if you attend the same Church as me. There is always room for improvement, and we live in a world where it is easy to go off course, so we always need a compass to repoint our true north in Christ. A GPS that recalculates when we take a wrong turn.

We are protestants. We have been since we attended our first church service, young or old. Some I know have come from Catholic or Orthodoxy. But we are protestants, and it shows. I studied with a group of Antioch Orthodox brethren for a year. It was interesting to see where we agree and disagree. One of the questions that was asked of me was when were protestants going to stop protesting. If you have never thought of it, that is how we got our name. The Great Reformation protested the workings of the Catholic Church.

What was my answer to when we protestants would stop protesting? I said that when we have nothing else to protest! And come to the unity of faith. And the full stature of Jesus. And when we are known by the world as loving one another more than our own lives.

That was my biblical answer. My honest answer was never. Why? Because we have hundreds of protestant denominations. Every week, someone protests those denominations and begins a new church. If we are not protesting doctrines, we are protesting how to do Church, when to do Church, and even if the Church should be in a public building or a home. Should the Church be organized or organic? Just how much longer are we protestants going to protest?

We are still protesting against the Catholics four hundred and seven years later. And I am still on board with the protest of the many man-made doctrines, and their current Pope is something else. I'm not going to say any more there.

But in 2024, our protesting is coming to an end with the canceling of the Church altogether. Some are claiming they are the Church wherever they step foot. Or wherever two or more believers come together. But this crowd is not pointing true north.

Like everything in our 2024 society today, the Church is corrupt. None of us are untouched by the corruption going on in our circles or tribes, as the new generation is calling them. What is your tribe? Who are your people?

For a decade or more, I had a teaching entitled, 'If you are disillusioned by the church, it is because you have an illusion about the church.'

Church is not a safe place that many think it is. I have learned no matter how early I wake up and get to Church, the devil is already there! I have learned to suit up in the armor of God to go to Church! Everyone needs to know a few facts and a few truths about the Church before they cancel the Church.

First, let's discuss the facts. We are told by Jesus that there are sheep and goats. The sheep know his voice and follow him and no other. Conversely, the goats will eat anything and follow anyone willing to tickle their ears and feed their needs.

Jesus also gives us the parable of the wheat and the tares. They look the same in the fields of our churches and are often not distinguishable until harvest time when the tares are taken away by the angles to be burned. Or a storm level’s a house built on the sand, but not the Rock of Jesus Christ.

It takes practicing the righteousness of God to discern between good and evil. Peter saw that Jesus was good when he declared that he was the Christ and the answer to eternal life. But it was John who laid his head on the chest of Jesus that could be trusted enough with who was the tare. We are warned not to pull up the tares less; we also pull up the wheat. We are to wait till harvest, where the deeds done in darkness are made known. Some to the praise of God and others to the judgment of God.

Still, there is more disillusions in the Church. Paul talks about sheep in wolf clothing and the opportunists who take advantage of those who are new to the faith. And also spies that come to strip us of our freedom in Christ. And the circumcised group that loves Church and ministry more than God himself. Like the Pharisees, they hold the keys to the kingdom but don't allow anyone in nor go in themselves.

We will get to the truth about the Church in a little bit. But more of the facts of our current church culture. We have false brethren, whether they are aware of it or not. Jesus is upon their lips, but their heart is far from him. Then we have those aware but turned off the light, so their deeds remain hidden: the false teachers and prophets looking for fame and fortune. Instead of making disciples for Jesus, they make barns for themselves to receive all the gifts of those they are deceiving. These false leaders are praised and propped up by those with itching ears. If you get in between them, you have a two-front war.

We are almost done with the facts and then move on to the truth. After dealing with all the false, we have the immature Christians who do love the Lord but only drink milk and not the strong meat of the Word. They are full of zeal but not according to the truth. They are carnal, oblivious to the body of Christ, only thinking of themselves. They have their clicks and arguments that lead to the law, not grace. They gossip and are consumed with who is who. Who is the man or woman of the hour to follow, leaving yesterday's person behind because they have been outgrown? We need new revelations. We need fresh bread.

Our Churches have unfruitful carnal Christians who should be teachers by now but are infertile because Christ, the seed of eternal glory, hasn't been fully formed in them to share the gospel.

I have read the Bible many times. And I have looked throughout church history to see an ebb and flow. There is a time of gathering and a time of scattering. Church, from what I can tell, has never been pretty. The new birth is beautiful until you must disciple and clean up the messes of the new saints for a few years. Church is Church, the good and the bad. We come in bad and hope we move onto good through the ways of God in Christ Jesus.

People always say they want to return to the First Church. Do you mean the one where all the disciples ran away when Jesus was arrested? Do you mean the Corinthian Church, where Paul had to lay into them because they were complicit with a man sleeping with his stepmother? And having a so-called communion where some were left out? Or maybe one of the seven churches in Revelation. Five of them were rough as well. Another one was probably a small church because of the level of persecution, and then there is the Church of Philadelphia we all want to be part of. But it is as a myth to our generation that there could be such a church.

And on with the facts. Truth is coming, so don't stop reading now. How do you get along with the Peters within the Church, always thinking they are more than they are and putting their foot in their mouth? And John, the disciple that Jesus loves, until he boils over and wants to call fire down on you. Thomas? Do you know anyone who doubts and challenges everything done in the Church? And Nathan, the man with no guile in him because he says whatever is on his heart without a filter. We don't have to wonder where he stands! He declares it with boldness! And then there are the Judas’; we may not know who they are till the last hour. Until then, they drag us along for almost the entire ride if we aren't discerning.

Now, onto the truth!

The Church is complex. But Jesus established the Church on his rock, and the gates will not prevail. This has been true for almost two thousand years because God cannot lie and watches over his Word to perform it. Jesus' disciples over the centuries are not the ones who have kept this promise. Without Jesus keeping an unconditional promise, the Church would have been lost a long time ago.

Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church. I have some building experience on my homestead, and let me tell you, when laying a foundation, you better keep your eye on the cornerstone if you want a solid, flat foundation. I made the mistake of leveling as I went with the brick I had previously laid. The foundation was not level, and had to redo it. Church history must be evaluated back to the cornerstone of Jesus and not the next brick we lay from. If you love church tradition more than the eternal written Word of God, you are an unlevel Christian. Jesus is the cornerstone of everything we do. When we look away, we will go off course.

Jesus established an organized church with five ministry gifts unto the Church to build it up, establishing the believers so that every new wind of doctrine moves none. Help us grow into the full stature of Jesus as we learn to love the brethren more than our own lives coming into the unity of the faith.

John, the apostle that Jesus loved, said that no one needs to be told the truth because they have the same access to God and the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. But that doesn't mean we can have a Church without the five gifts Jesus gave to the Church. It means that we are not limited to the Church as the only channel of truth.

Paul set up elders in each Church to help keep it pointed true north. Canceling Church means we are also canceling the elders. It won't be long before GPS is screaming at us to turn around.

Churches nowadays are becoming more like businesses in which they merge buy each other out, and there are a few hostile takeovers and that should not be. Jesus gave the mission of the Church. That mission is called the Great Commission. The Church is to go into all nations and make disciples, teaching all the commands of God, etc.

If your Church has a different mission, then you are not in a church where the gates of hell will not prevail. You may be in a Christian ministry that thinks it is a church but isn't.

All churches also have the same vision: that we come to the full stature of Christ and that we are chaste brides ready for Jesus' return. That we have every spot, wrinkle, and such thing removed from us before the day of judgment. If your Church is a niche, you are not a church. Maybe a ministry but not a church. The Church is to teach the whole counsel of the Word of God. Giftings may be heavy in evangelism or the prophetic, etc., but the whole counsel of God must not be neglected for a niche.

Jesus said his Church is to be salt and light set on a hill for all of society to see our good works and give glory to God. We are to be seen and heard in our cities—a church for a city and not just in a city. Jesus was crucified in public, and we are to remain in public occupying until his return.

Whether we have a church in a public building or a believer's home, we need certain things to be a church. Not every Church is large enough to have all five ministry gifts locally. But every Church should be connected to all five ministry gifts so that nothing that Jesus has given us is left out, and we suffer for it.

The Church has a purpose that has been lost in many cases. The Church is not the onboarding of ingenerates sinners. Church is where the saved learn how to do the work of the ministry, so when we bring a visitor, they are already saved and ready to be part of the community.

Church is where we learn to do the work of the ministry so that we know how to live with an unbeliever and how we can raise godly children. The Church is not responsible for saving our unbelieving spouse or raising our children. A help, yes.

God created six days as common, and one day he made holy to assemble together as one. What day that is is debatable, but we all need a minimum of one day to connect in many different ways. The community, the common union, where we get our second wind and lean on in times of trouble, should be with our immediate family first and in the Church second and not in a worldly community like school, workplace, sports, etc.

The early Church also met from house to house. Not every night for every person, but often because living the life Christ commands us to walk brings a life of persecution. Once the Christians of this nation start walking with Christ, we are going to have persecution and need one another. But since we walk with a cultural Jesus, we are not hated for our churches. We are seen as non-essentials because we have lost our salt and light.

The Church is meant to be a house of prayer. One puts a thousand to flight, two outs ten thousand to flight. We are more powerful together. No one person is the Church. The Church comprises believers who assemble to harmonize the gospel as Jesus is the melody. In celebrity church, we have forgotten this.

The Church is more extensive and significant than the short truths I have listed. The Church is hard. Love is difficult. But that is what we are called to. We are one body. We have one Baptism and one Spirit. We are going to need one another in the days approaching. Technically speaking, you don't need the Church to go to heaven, but practically speaking, I don't know how you will be able to hold to Christ without the daily help of a church body.

You may need to cancel your Church and find the one that Jesus has set you into—just one more warning for those who are thinking of canceling Church.

Many in the body of Christ have disassociated with the body of Christ and are walking hands like in the Adams Family, just weird, ineffective, and sickly. Social media is full of talking heads who are disconnected from a local group of believers called the Church and the elders who keep the compass of the true north. Many who have canceled Church but still claim to be in Christ have left the ensemble to be a clanging symbol from 1 Corinthians 13.