The New Testament authors assume active church membership. In fact, the love that is characteristic of Christians is most clearly seen in the context of relationships within the church. We’ve also seen that involvement in a local church helps facilitate spiritual growth, Christlikeness, in those who are following Jesus.
I want to look at the relationship between church attendance and spiritual gifts.
Spiritual gifts can be likened to talents. Specifically, a spiritual gift is an ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in the ministry context of a local church. All Christians are indwelled by the Spirit of Christ upon conversion, and scripture teaches that all Christians have at least one spiritual gift.
Peter writes: “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). After listing several different gifts, Paul writes: “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). If you are a Christian, the question is not “Do I have a spiritual gift?”, but “What is my spiritual gift?”
In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, he devotes much attention to the topic of spiritual gifts. He compares the function of a local church to that of a human body. The Christians who make up any given local church are gifted by the Holy Spirit with differing spiritual gifts, which, when exercised, allow for the proper functioning of the church. He writes: “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be?” (1 Cor. 12:18-19). In other words, not everyone in the church has the gift of teaching.
Not everyone in the church has the gift of service or mercy or administration, etc. Can you imagine a church full of administrators, to the exclusion of those gifted with mercy or exhortation? Can you imagine a body made up of eyes and ears and mouths, but no hands or arms? In God’s wisdom, He gifts Christians in such a way so that the ministries of the church function properly when the members are faithful to exercise their gifts.
Therein lies the problem. When those claiming to be Christians refuse to be involved with the local church, they are hurting its proper functioning. Spiritual gifts were given for the building up of the body of Christ, the church (1 Cor. 14:19). Christians are to exercise their spiritual gifts because in doing so they help to promote spiritual formation in other believers. In Romans 12:6, Paul writes: “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly – .”
Everyone who is truly following Jesus should be concerned with spiritual growth. Because spiritual gifts are to be exercised in and through the context of a local church, Christians need to be actively involved with their local church (the redeemed people of God gathering together).