Do I need to attend Church in person or can I just watch online only?

About this Episode

Do I need to attend Church in person or can I just watch online? Listen as we discuss this great question on the RIOT Podcast, a Christian Discipleship Podcast today.

Many people have asked if it's ok just to watch church online each week and not attend church in person. Would God be ok with that? Due to Covid 19 and everything happening in the world today watching online is becoming more of the norm. The danger we see in all of this is the disconnection from each other that can lead us down a slippery slope. In today’s show, we want to talk about this disconnect, the importance of the Christian Family, and how the church plays a vital role in all of this.

To help us answer this question we must first identify the purpose of the Church Family. Let’s Read Colossians 3:12-17

According to these verses we do not exist as Christian families as separate entities and on our own, but we exist as Christian families within the context of God’s family, and it is within the framework of the family of God that we discover the support and the encouragement that we desperately need in the raising of our children. To watch online only will alienate us from the oversight of the Church Family

We are God's Chosen ones, called in one body, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another.

The Christian family folds itself into the church family and that it is the church family which makes sense of the family

What does it mean as a parent, that you have decided you will place yourself and your family within the context of a church family?

The church is not a building to which we return, where we visit, but it’s a family to which we belong. To only watch online separates us from our church family and the covering that it brings.

Instead of asking, “How can I fit the church into my family agenda?” the question is actually reversed: “How, then, can I fold my family life to fit into the purposes and practices of the church?”

The concept of the Kingdom of God makes sense in the Church. Sinclair Ferguson Said “My family needs the church family for its own growth and health. No single-family possesses all the resources it needs to be a truly and fully Christian family. We need support, friendship, example, wise counsel, and much else from the church family.” Listen to this: “Two Christian parents are not in themselves adequate to rear one child for Christ—they were never meant to be. So the resources of our own family—no matter how wonderful—are scarcely adequate. We—and perhaps especially our children—need the church, and in that context [they and] we will be blessed beyond … expectation.”

The Church Family helps us grow spiritually through fellowship, watching online erases that.

Colossians 3:15 NK JV 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.