LIFE LESSON: Regular Church attendance is not the key to heaven

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In the circles that I socialized in we would ask questions like when was the last time you attended church or how often do you go to church? This was our way to determine one's level of commitment to church. We would ask these questions because we viewed church attendance as a tick box exercise to find out who is likely to qualify for the Kingdom of God and who is likely to be disqualified.

My belief then was that regular church attendance leads to the Kingdom of God but that is not what the gospel says.

Platform for empowerment

God has been on a mission to reconnect with humanity since Adam and Eve disobeyed him, this reconnection happens through our acknowledgement of Jesus Christ. God’s aim with this reconnection is twofold: firstly it is meant to save us from spending eternity without him and secondly it is to restore us to the highest version of ourselves. This is the version God created us to be to display his glory in the world and make an impact in the lives of others.

To ensure that God’s vision of restoring us into what he created us for is realised he created a platform where we can be empowered to fulfil his vision and this platform is called the church. This is how the church empowers us to access the greatness that we were created for:

Increase our knowledge of God: The church’s teachings about Jesus Christ increases our knowledge of God. It is also a place to fellowship and interact with likeminded people where we get exposed to various characteristics of God when we witness his work as he operates through the lives of various members of the community.


Learn to serve: Contrary to what the world teaches, being self-centered does not lead to greatness. It is only when we focus on the needs of others more than of our own that we are able to access the greatness God created us to be. We focus on the needs of others by serving people and the church provides us a platform to serve each other in a safe environment so we can learn this skill, because it does not come naturally to us. 

Encouragement: This journey is full of distractions designed to sway us away from reaching our destiny. The church becomes a place where we go to build our faith and to be encouraged by the teachings of Jesus Christ and community members who have been on the journey a lot longer than we have been or have experienced challenges similar to ours.

Church is very important in the life of every Christian but when it is done without acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour it then becomes a religious activity that does not have the power to guarantee us a place in the Kingdom of God.

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