Why We Gather: Part I

This season of searching has got me thinking a lot about church gatherings. I’m not talking about gift exchanges, pot lucks, and singing Christmas Trees. I’m talking about the regular gathering of the church.

As Christians, we’re reminded to “go to church”. But have you ever wondered why we gather?

It seems like a silly question, that is, until you start to think about it. I mean, does attendance alone satisfy the requirement to “not forsake our gathering” (Heb. 10:25)? Or is there’s some purpose that we should be collectively striving toward when we meet?

I suspect most would say that the reason we gather is to worship. After all, it does seem like our church services are built around activities like praise songs and prayer. And since the worship service has remained essentially unchanged for the last 1,800 years, it’s easy to assume the way we gather satisfies the reason for our gathering.

But I’m skeptical.

After a lot of research, I no longer believe mere “worship” to be the primary goal of gathering (at least not the way that we think of it today). Nor do I think much of what we do in a typical church gathering is particularly effective for achieving the Lord’s real purpose in our gatherings.

Over the next three posts I want to uncover why we gather as believers.

Properly understanding why we gather will help us shape how we gather. Where our practices are misaligned with the Lord’s purpose for His gatherings, we should consider an adjustment in how we do church. Where there’s a complete departure from his purpose, we should reconsider our manner of gathering altogether.

I recognize it’s exceedingly arrogant to suggest that most churches could be getting this wrong. But I ask that you keep an open mind as you follow my logic. When discussing methods of church practice, we tend to view what’s right in terms of tradition. So, before we start, I’d ask you take any preconceived notions about “what church is” or “what church should be” and lay it at the altar of our King. (After all, it’s His church.) Starting with a clean slate in our minds will help us see more clearly the Lord’s original purpose for our gatherings.

As always, I’m open to correction on any of this and invite you into the discussion as I work out my own thoughts on this topic. To be clear, this is not a study on the purpose of the church, but rather to examine the purpose of our regular assemblies. The two are things are connected, but not the same.

In this article, we’ll start with our aperture on its widest setting to consider why believers gather. In the next article, we’ll focus on what scripture can tell us. In the final article, we’ll put it all together, draw conclusions, and respond to common objections.

The beginning is always a good place to start. In fact, let’s start before the beginning.

The Gathering of the Trinity

Since all creation reflects its creator, and mankind was created in God’s image, maybe there’s something about God Himself that can give us insight into why His children gather.

In a previous post, I wrote on the Lord’s Eternal Purpose. There, I described the eternal fellowship that existed among the members of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This idea is derived from John 1:1-2; 17:5; and 17:24 among other places in scripture.

Here’s what I wrote…

Before anything was created, there was only the uncreated Trinitarian Community: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. What were they doing? From the scriptures above, it would seem that they were focused on a single activity: Engaging one another in eternal fellowship, unbroken communion, and boundless intimacy. It was eternal because its members had no beginning. (The Trinity is uncreated.) It was unbroken because there was nothing from which to divide their attention. Their intimacy was boundless because boundlessness is the nature of God and everything that flows from Him. The Father loved the Son by way of the Spirit. The Son returned the Love to the Father by way of the Spirit. And this was all there was–a fellowship based on fathomless intimacy that was beyond human description.

When was the first church gathering? Was it at Pentecost? Or maybe as Jesus gathered with His disciples? Or could it have been in the assembly of Israel?

I would suggest that long before anything was created, the Trinity participated in what could be called the first church gathering.

Why did they gather?

They gathered to behold one another in love, appreciation, reverence, and beauty; to speak words of eternal truth; and to glorify one another.

How did they gather?

They gathered in community.

In his book The Community Life of God, Milt Rodriguez makes the case that the Godhead was intended to be the model for all relationships in the church. In other words, the communion of the Father and the Son was characterized by the exchange of divine life between them. If that same divine life has now been given to His church to participate in its nature (2 Peter 1:3-4), then the same relationship that occurs within the Godhead would be replicated between the Lord and among the members of His Body (John 17:20-23).

Says Rodriguez,

True ‘church life’ is the spiritual and practical expression of the corporate life of the Triune God. This is lived out through human beings. We do not have a community that is separate from His. He IS our community! If a group of believers is not a community, then they are not the church. The church is not a building, organization, or event. The church is the community of believers who are the expression of the corporate life of God. This is a continual flow of divine life, not just a meeting. This is a tribe, a society, a lifestyle, a family of brothers and sisters.

The implications of this idea are staggering. It completely shatters the experience of a typical church gathering. In our gatherings, we not only do we model the relationship within Godhead, but we’re given the privilege of participating with the Trinity in their gathering! We don’t invite the Lord to come into His presence for an hour on a Sunday morning. Rather, He invites His children to come into His presence to join what He’s has always been part of.

If this is true, consider the following:

If the church has been invited to participate in the gathering of Father, Son, and Spirit, what would it look like? What kinds of activity and interaction would take place?

If the Lord Himself has invited us into His gathering, who leads the gathering?

If the Lord is part of our gatherings, how do we engage Him? How does He participate with us?

Let’s continue…

Clues from Anthropology

Maybe it’s a stretch, but I believe one way to understand why Christians gather is to understand why humans gather. After all, the Lord designed us to be social. He could have just as easily created us to be solitary creatures, perfectly independent from each other. But he didn’t. He created us to gather in communities. Of course, sin and the Fall maligned our gathering instincts, giving us less than noble reasons to gather (i.e., conducting war, engaging in organized crime, subjugating weaker societies, etc.). But deep within us is the drive to be with other humans.

This drive has been recognized and studied by secular anthropologists and social scientists. Their research tells us that humans gather several reasons. These include:

The need for safety and security. There’s safety in numbers. Being together is vital to survival. Isolation means death—not only physical death, but mental and spiritual death as well.

The desire to work toward shared goals. As independent as we want to be, there are things we can’t do alone. We gather to work toward goals that couldn’t be done with fewer people. Achieving these goals isn’t merely through the division of labor, but also through the motivation, accountability, and support that’s required to reach it. Through cooperation, we pool and leverage our individual strengths to get the job done.

The need for mutual support and encouragement. Humans were made for connection. People gather to support one another mentally and emotionally. Our interactions provide context through which we weigh our own thoughts and actions. Despite advances in telecommunication technology, there’s something about being in the physical presence of others that “digital presence” can’t replace.

The need to belong. There is something inside of every human that causes them to want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. We want to feel valued and accepted as part of a group as we contribute to its purpose. This explains why things like social organizations and even membership in gangs has such draw.

A desire to share experiences. People gather to share their common experiences. This not only includes doing things with others, but also talking to others outside the group about the things they experienced. By telling the story of our own experiences, we bring others into that experience.

Note that while any of these reasons could be corrupted, they are neither inherently corrupt nor the result of corruption. It’s as though these desires were placed in our hearts as part of the Lord’s original design. But since the Fall, we’ve struggled to satisfy them. We have worried about our security, struggle for assistance, pursue unsatisfying relationships, and join civic organizations in the hope of satisfying a need to belong. But as a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), the Lord has given us the means and ability to live our lives consistent with our anthropological design which is most fully realized in a gathering of believers under Christ.

If you think about it, it’s only in such an assembly that we can completely satisfy the need to:

Rest in the safety and security (since we rest in Christ who is in our midst),
Work toward shared goals (since mankind’s greatest endeavor is to leverage our individual strengths to demonstrate, embody, and proclaim the Kingdom),
Support and encouraging one another (since our support and encouragement comes from the love that Christ has given us to share),
Attain the highest sense of belonging (since humanity’s highest call is to serve the True King by advancing His Eternal Purpose), and
Share experiences with other brothers and sisters (by learning from one another as we pursue the Lord together).

So, here’s a question:

If Christians were free to gather in a way that aligned with the Lord’s communal design, what would their gatherings look like?

I’d suggest you ponder the question for a moment before continuing.

The Synagogue

After the fall, the Lord sought to redeem the world through the Hebrew Nation. I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on how the Jewish Synagogues may have influenced why we gather as Christians. After all, we are their religious descendants.

The word “synagogue” is taken from the word synagōgē (συναγωγή) which literally means “gathering”. While tradition stories vary, history suggests that the synagogue began out of necessity during the periods of captivity after the Judeans were exiled to Babylonia around 598 B.C. Because they no longer had access to the Temple in Jerusalem, disbursed Jews would gather for group prayer and communal worship. After the end of the exile some 50 years later, many but not all Jews returned to Jerusalem. As they migrated and settled into Palestine and throughout the Mediterranean basin they would continue meeting in this fashion. While the Temple continued to be the focal point of Jewish worship until its destruction in 70AD, the synagogue assembly had been firmly established in Jewish culture by the first century. By then it had come to have its own specialized buildings for worship. These are the places that Paul and Barnabas visited in Asia Minor to share the good news of the Messiah’s return during their first missionary journey recorded in Acts 13-14.

Like the earliest church, few details are recorded about the core purpose and manner of gathering of the first century synagogue. Like the church, the manner of assembly during the 1^st century differed significantly throughout history leading to the present day. But the details we have in scripture and the Mishnah provide a tantalizing look at what the first century church most likely appeared since the earliest Christians were Jews and Gentile “God fearers” who were used to a certain manner and purpose of gathering.

First, each synagogue was an autonomous body which gathered each Sabbath. While the Pharisees were technically in control of the synagogues, their influence into the regular assembly meetings was spotty outside of Jerusalem and the major population centers. Even rabbinic leadership was rare. Instead, they were communal institutions led by elders and archisynagogoi (Greek for “heads of synagogues”) (Mark 5:22; Acts 13:15). The “service” itself was not performed by one person or even a group of permanently installed officers, but rather through a group of lay peers chosen by the congregation at the beginning of each assembly to perform specific parts. While it is common today for men and women to be separated in an orthodox synagogue service, evidence suggests that the women sat with their husbands and children in the 1^st century.

The purpose of the typical assembly was worship in the form of communal responsive prayers (Matt 6:5, Josephus, Life) and instruction in the form of reading and interpreting the Torah and the Prophets (Acts 15:21). The prayers of that time were most certainly based on 19 eulogies and four benedictions which were said in a very specific order in a liturgical style. At some level, the gathering was a procedural necessity, since certain prayers could not be said unless at least 10 or 11 men were gathered. As part of the liturgy, the Shema was recited, which declared their allegiance to the Lord. Interestingly, songs in the form of hymns were not a part of the 1^st century synagogue service. Rather, the prayers were chanted or intoned (with the precise intonations having been handed down by tradition).

Toward the end of the service, instruction was given through a reading from the law or the Prophets. This part of the service was less liturgical and more “free form”. Any Jew could access the Ark of Scrolls and could be invited to give a reading (as we see Jesus doing in Luke 4:16-21). We see Paul and Barnabas taking advantage of this flexibility as they were invited to speak on various occasions from Acts 13-19. A “sermon” would then be given, followed by a priestly blessing.

Given what we see, it seems that the purpose of the 1^st century synagogue gathering served primarily as a reminder of who they were as Jews. Assembly provided a means of “anticipatory maintenance” which served to keep the Law alive in their hearts and to maintain communal connections with their tradition and with one another. The various feasts and celebrations that the synagogue would observe such as Passover, Pentecost, and the Day of Atonement were shadows which anticipated the coming Messiah.

However, when Christ arrived and His Kingdom declared, the purpose of such assemblies would have adjusted significantly to better align with the new paradigm. The most significant change would be from being primarily anticipatory to being reflective, declarative and celebratory.

Given the radical ways that the Messiah’s arrival would have changed the face of Judaism…

In what ways would the purpose and manner of the Jewish assembly have changed?

In what ways could it have remained the same?

Why did 1^st century Messianic Jews find it necessary to assemble separately from the Jews of tradition?

I’d ask that you thoughtfully consider these questions before proceeding.

An Obligation to the Common Good

Depending on your Bible translation, the word “church” is used around 115 times in the New Testament. “Church” is a distinctly English word whose derivation (from Greek to Latin to German to English) across the centuries is rather cryptic. But if we can crack the code on its original meaning and intent, it might shed some light on what the Lord intended for our gatherings.

Whenever you come across the word “church” in scripture, the Greek word used there is the word ekklesia (ἐκκλησία) which is generally translated “assembly” or “gathering”. It’s a versatile word that could be used to refer to social, political, and religious gatherings. It could even be used to refer to groups that never formally gathered.

However, during the 4^th and 5^th centuries B.C., the word ekklesia held special significance. It was used to refer to an assembly of approximately 6,000 Athenian citizens. This group was summoned by herald as often as 30 to 40 times each year to make decisions affecting the public. When summoned, they had a civic responsibility to assemble on the Pnyx which was a hill to the southwest of the Acropolis in Athens. There, they would seek the common good of their city-state through deliberation and by voting on proposed decrees, treaties, laws, and elections.

At the time there was no grammatical between these two meanings of ekklesia. It would have been like using the phrase “white house” to refer to either a white-colored house or the place where the President of the United States lives. What was meant by ekklesia would have been derived from its context. Regardless, prior to Jesus, ekklesia carried no special connotation as a “group of Christians”.

Among the gospels, Matthew is the only one where the word ekklesia is mentioned. It’s used in Matthew 16:18 where Jesus mentions that He will build his church. Of course, we run into the problem of trying to figure out the term that Jesus actually used since he likely spoke Aramaic before Matthew translated this event into Greek. But we know that Luke (in Acts), Paul, James, John, and the writer of Hebrews used ekklesia in their epistles to refer to the congregations of Christ’s people.

Other Greek words could have been used to describe the church as a gathering. For example, plethos (πλῆθος) indicates a large group of people. Theates (θεατές) refers to spectators or onlookers. Laos (λαός) refers to a collective group with a common purpose. But while any of these words could have been used, ekklesia was chosen to describe the Body of Christ.

There are a couple of reasons why scholars believe the word ekklesia was chosen to refer to the church in scripture. One reason, suggested by Robert Farrar Capon, proposes that ekklesia was the obvious choice to describe assemblies under the new covenant based on how the Hebrew was translated into the Greek in the Septuagint. The Septuagint used the words ekklesia and synagoge to describe the assembly of Israel. Since the word synagoge had already been taken to describe the Jewish synagogue, they believe the New Testament writers used the only remaining word to describe the church (which they viewed as the fulfillment of Israel’s purpose) which was ekklesia.

But there’s another theory.

Some scholars have suggested that the word ekklesia might have been applied to the church to intentionally invoke the idea of the Athenian legislative body we just described. In her dissertation, The Ekklesia as an Assembly That Invokes Response, Tara Caudle writes:

The aspect of citizenship holds great influence in both the Greek context and the biblical context of the ekklesia. With citizenship comes the responsibilities of being a citizen. For the Greeks, citizenship means obedience to the law of Athens and contributing to the good of the polis through participation in the ekklesia. For the kingdom of God, citizenship means obedience to God’s commands to love God and others and fulfill the great commission. This is done, in part, through participation in the ekklesia, by assembling with the other citizens of God’s kingdom. . . . In the Athenian assembly, the common advantage is sought for the sake of a healthy polis by which man has the good life. In the biblical assembly, the common advantage is sought for the sake of the gospel by which man has eternal life through Christ.

In other words, just as the Athenian assembly were citizens summoned by herald into the work of the polis, the church are citizens summoned by Christ into the work of the Kingdom. Just as the Athenian assembly was obligated to the community to contribute to the common good of its citizens, the Christian assembly is obligated to the Kingdom community to contribute to the common good of its citizens (1 Cor. 12:7).

I don’t know about you, but I find this concept intriguing (and not just a little bit exciting). Presuming that the Christian ekklesia was intended to have a similar role and obligation as the Greek ekklesia…

How might things change if we viewed the assembly as an obligation to the Body of Christ?

How might things change if we understood the purpose of gathering as a place where every member contributes to the spiritual and practical needs of the assembly?

How does the interaction between members of the Greek assembly compare to that of the Christian assembly? How are they similar? Different? Why?

Again, I’d ask that you careful reflect on these questions before proceeding.

In this post we evaluated at a very high level by looking at several prototypical models of the church. These models reflect various thoughts concerning how the Lord might want His church to function.

We considered the communal interaction between the Father, Son, and Spirit as the model of the church’s gathering. We looked at the church gathering as where the Lord’s social design for humanity is most fully realized. We evaluated the 1st century synagogue assembly as the church’s immediate precursor. Lastly, we pondered the idea of the Greek legislative assembly as a model of the Christian assembly. After each section we asked questions to consider why and how the church would gather in light of these models. The purpose of this exercise was to break up our paradigms and stretch our thinking about how and why the church gathers.

In the next post, we’ll narrow the focus by looking closely at what scripture offers us on this subject.