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2The sound kept getting louder and louder. With each tick of the clock the sweat in my palms seemed to be growing enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool! I really don’t like going to the doctors’! But for all my nervousness, it’s always a huge relief when I see the doctor. He listens to me and gives me a solution to whatever I’m worried about. Going to the surgery sometimes takes time to get around to, but once I am there, I know it’s for the best.

Some people can feel that way about church. Maybe we don’t want to go, or maybe we think that our time can be better spent elsewhere. Or it may not be something we’re used to. Going to church for the first time can feel very strange. But imagine a world with no doctors or hospitals. What would we do? Who would help us? We need our doctors!

And we need church. It may surprise you, but church isn’t the building where Christians meet together. It is the combined name given to Christians.

Church happens most obviously on a Sunday when we meet together, the Bible is taught, we pray and sing hymns. But church is more than just that. Church is community. And God tells us to be actively involved in this community.

Why? Just as we need doctors to help us when we’re ill, we need the church community to help us help to live for Jesus (and not just on a Sunday, but throughout the week). It’s in the church where we find out more about Jesus by listening to the Bible. Through the Bible teaching and learning from other Christians, we can come to know Jesus better and learn how to live for him more and more.

But even though we go to church, we’ll still have struggles and problems that we need help with. And it is in church that we receive the help we need to live for Jesus. He has given us preachers to help us understand the Bible. He has given us other Christians to pray for us and encourage us. And he has even given us to the church! We too need to go to church so that we can help others to live for Christ.

Church isn’t perfect. People fall out and struggle with each other sometimes. But that’s why it’s so great! It’s our spiritual hospital to continue helping each other (especially in the difficult times), through the work of the Holy Spirit, to grow together in Christ.

We need the church, because without it we will find it more difficult to live the Christian life.

— Sean, an Our Daily Bread reader

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