More than at any time in human history, we live in a consumeristic society. Anything and everything that we could imagine can be bought or experienced for a price. Things that no previous generation would have imagined are now available to us with the click of a button. Often we do not even have to interact with another human being as we search for whatever our hearts desire. 

But is this the approach we are to take with church? Are we to blindly consume it with no thought towards its significance? Should gathering for Lord’s Day corporate worship be nothing more than one of a myriad of Sunday activities, with no more weight or importance than anything else we might do that day? How about outside of Sunday mornings? Should prayer gatherings, member meetings, and other corporate events in the life of the church be weighed on an equal basis with school events, sports, entertainment, and other non-essentials? To put it succinctly, what–or rather who–should order our life, the things that will perish or things that, as the hymn writer says, are a ”foretaste of glory divine”?

In two previous blog posts (Many Members, One Body and Love the Church) we looked at how the church is the bride of Christ. The local church is a committed, or covenanted, group of believers led by a plurality of elders who bear the responsibility to shepherd and care for their people (1 Peter 5:1-3), people for whom they will give an account (Hebrews 13:17). When thinking through what it looks like to actively live as a member of the body of Christ, it can be helpful to think through who other believers in our church are and how we should relate to them. Why? Because of what we share in common.

In That Which We Share

First, we share a common salvation. We share in being chosen by God the Father (1 Peter 1:2) to be born again to eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3). We are set aside as “a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9) having been born again of incorruptible seed through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

Second, we share a common reward of eternal life in heaven as a result of our common salvation. That singular narrow gate through which we have all passed by faith in Christ means that we will live together as one body, one people in heaven for all of eternity. Everything in this life will eventually pass away except for our salvation. In heaven we will see the ultimate fulfillment of what Paul says in his letter to the Galatian churches that there will no longer be Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, because we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). 

Now the question becomes, if we share in a common salvation and we share in its full outworking of eternal life, what do we share in the meantime? What is it that we share, and how are we to relate to fellow Christians while we await the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:10)? We share in a life of obedient, faithful living here on this earth together as one chosen people. A life that has been dramatically changed by God’s grace, befitting the new self that we put on when we were born again (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Now practically speaking, what does that look like in regards to church life? Simply put, we are not to be conformed to our former lusts (1 Peter 1:14). In other words, we are not to order our lives according to our former desires, desires that dominated us and were the result of our ignorance before we were born again. So when it comes to Lord’s Day corporate worship, we can not simply slip that in as one extra activity on Sunday and let the rest of our day remain as it was before, being driven by our former desires. Gathering together for Lord’s Day corporate worship is the high point of the week for Christians, and something that we are commanded to do in Scripture (Hebrews 10:24-25). 

Just as we can’t slip corporate worship into our already existing calendar and expect nothing else to change, we must ask ourselves whether it is simply our Sunday mornings that change when we become a Christian, or whether it is our entire lives–all seven days of the week. In fact, what would it look like for us at Providence to order our lives around the corporate (collective) activities of our local church so that we are truly living with a glimpse into what it will be like to live together for eternity in Heaven? When the body gathers together corporately to pray, to confess, to thank God, to hear his Word, and to ask Him to meet our needs, do we join in or are we regularly “too busy”? When the body gathers together to hear testimonies of everything that God is doing in our midst, to hear about what our local church needs, or what we are striving to accomplish, do we joyfully go to see how God is inviting us to participate, or do we have “more important things” scheduled?

To be clear, this is not a call that every person must attend every possible ministry that a church might have. God calls us to take care of our families, to work, to fellowship, to raise children, etc. and there certainly must be time for that. But at the same time, if our commitment to the local body of believers is the bare minimum of time and effort, what are we really communicating? As Christians we are called to make disciples (Matthew 28:19), but we are still being discipled ourselves. Since life in the local church is the primary way in which we are discipled, we must honestly examine what it means to value it and make it a priority–for God’s glory and our good.

Upcoming Corporate Events at Providence

• Oct. 19, 2025: Sunday at the Pavilion – Single Outdoor Service and Baptisms
• Oct. 26, 2025: Corporate Prayer Gathering
• Nov. 16, 2025: Corporate Member Gathering
• Nov. 30, 2025: Advent Night of Worship

More Reading

• What’s So Important About Your Local Church?, by John MacArthur
• What Is Shaping You?, by Nancy Guthrie