Three Minutes in Theology Why Unregenerate People Go to Church

Why Unregenerate People Go to Church

Welcome to Three Minutes of Theology. I'm Pastor Allen Nelson, pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Central Arkansas. I'm going to talk for a minute today, not so much of theology, though it is theological.

Nature.

I want to talk about why the many professing Christians in the Bible Belt go to church. Those for the wrong reasons, but why do they go to church? I'm talking about those that are actively involved in church, though they're most likely unregenerate, and yet they're going to church.

Week in, week out, they're serving on committees, they may be serving as a deacon or a Sunday school teacher, they may even be serving as pastor. What is it that keeps them going to church? You think, well, if they're unregenerate, why are they going to church?

Community, Religious Duty, and Children

Well, here's some reasons that I want to offer. First, there's the idea of community. So this is being part of what it means to be made in the image of God. That is, even that old sitcom Cheers talks about in the introductory song, that you want to go to a place where everybody knows your name.

So there's a desire to be in community with one another, and you see that in sports and all those. There's a desire to be in community. The same exists in the local church. People go to the church because they like the community.

They like to be with people that think like them and such. So you could be an active member of a local church, but completely not born again because of you like the sense of community. Another aspect is, I would say, is religious duty.

So you know that you're supposed to go because you live in the Bible Belt, and your parents went, and your grandparents went, and your great-grandparents went. You know that church is something that you're supposed to do, so you go.

And it's why you don't want the sermons to be too long, and it's why you don't want the sermons to be too in-depth. It's why you prefer contemporary songs like Hillsong music and such, where it's not very theologically deep, and it centers more around you.

And you have this idea of religious duty, and so you go, and you keep going, and your conscience won't let you not go. You know that you're supposed to go. You don't go because you truly long to worship Christ.

Though you would say that, and you might even believe that, but really what you're doing is you're worshiping self, and you're worshiping your own religious works. And then a third aspect, I would say, is why some people who profess to be Christians go.

The Church as the Bride of Christ and a Life of Worship

To church.

It's the thing about their kids, and this is why children's ministry and youth ministry has just gone off the rails, like all the outlandish stuff and all the things in the games and all those things, is because people, they may not want to give full allegiance to Christ, but they want some sort of moral instruction for their children.

So what you have in the Bible Belt is you have all sorts of churches, small churches, big churches, medium churches, conservative churches even, that are full of people who are not regenerate, but they're still going to church every week.

And there's some very important reasons to understand why they're doing that, community, religious duty, the aspect of the children, whereas those who have been born again, they're committed to the church because they understand it's the bride of Christ.

They're there to serve. They're there to worship. They're there to grow in holiness. They're there to further the borders of the kingdom, and church is not only a place, though it is a place, it's not only a place they go to, but it's also a life that they live.

In.

Their whole week is ordered around the Lord's Day and the church and then living in community with the local church and hospitality and people in the homes and going out and doing evangelism and all these things together.

And they love the preaching of the word and good, hearty, theological, weighty, doctrinal preaching with tangible application. But the point is, there's a lot of people in the Bible Belt that go to church who are not born again, and these are some of the reasons why.

Biblical Ecclesiology and Examining Your Motives

So I hope you'll consider the reasons why you go to church and you think about these realities. These are important days and we must have a biblical ecclesiology study.