Cureton: 'I Think I'll Stay Home
This Sunday'

By Ken Cureton
Windsor Community UMC
[From The Branch, November 2006 ]

November 8, 2006

I think I will stay at home this Sunday. Just one Sunday won't make a difference, and nobody will miss me anyway. I worked all week and I'm tired. I deserve some time to myself. There is a big game on the tube. There is laundry and yard work. My life is so busy I just have to cut something out. I don't have to go to church to be a Christian, anyway. Those people can be nosy, and they always want money. I missed one Sunday; one more won't matter.

Next thing you know, I might stay home more often than I attend.

In a world that seems to get busier and more hectic by the week, it is easy to make excuses, and church is often one of the first things we cut out. Can a person make it to heaven without gonig to church? I suppose so, but the Bible itself makes a pretty good case for going. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another."

The church is not the big beautiful building. It is the believers, you and me. The time we spend in church is a time of fellowship, not only with God, but with one another where we can show love and support for one another, minister to one another, and yes, even help one another with accountability.

If there are 50 members of a church who are not attending but they still feel they are Christians, it is not unlike a car with parts scattered all over town. You don't have a car; you have the makings of a junkyard. You have to get all the parts working together. We all have a role to play in the church. We all touch one another's lives. Nobody is too bad to stay out of church. And nobody is too good to stay out either.

Jesus said, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Maybe I will be there this Sunday after all.