Why do we need a church?

Every Sunday, before the service begins, I, as bishop, take a moment to look around the room. I see the familiar faces—the people who have been sitting next to each other for years, the children whispering loudly because they don’t yet know how silence works. But there are also other faces. On average, every week I see about ten out of every hundred people who aren’t members yet. They’re here for the first, second, or third time. Someone invited them, or they searched online for the nearest church on their own.

Many of them don't keep coming back.

I find that interesting time and time again. Because when I talk to those people about why they don’t take the step toward baptism, it’s rarely about faith itself. Believing in something greater than yourself isn’t that difficult for most people. The sticking point lies elsewhere. And it’s precisely that sticking point that leads me to a question that reaches far beyond my own church: Why do we actually need a church? Why is religion as an institution—with buildings, structures, and rules—still valuable in an age when people prefer to craft their own spirituality?

A church is not the goal; faith is.

Let me first set the record straight on something that often causes confusion. A church is not an end in itself. Going to church—stepping into a building on Sunday—is not what it’s ultimately all about. Believing in Christ and living according to that faith—that is the goal. The church is a means to that end.

But a means is not unimportant. Just as a ladder is not an end in itself but is necessary to reach something, so too does a church as an institution make certain things possible that you cannot achieve on your own: forming bonds, performing rituals, building a community that supports you when you can no longer do so yourself. You need that as a tool, precisely because the goal is so grand.

And yet this is precisely where the tension lies that puts people off. As soon as you use the word “church,” people think of power, of control, of structures that seek to dominate the individual. That’s understandable. But it’s also a mistake to confuse power with influence. A church institution can have a great deal of influence without exercising power. The difference lies in voluntariness. No one is forced. Those who stay do so because it’s rewarding, not because they’re being held back.

The void left by individualism

I think this is where we get to the real heart of why so many people keep coming back, even though they feel that same distrust toward institutions. Our current society has given the individual an incredibly prominent place. You determine your own values. You put together your own sense of meaning, like a buffet where you choose what you like. On paper, that sounds like freedom.

In practice, it leaves a void. Because if everything is individual, you’re on your own. No one is watching over you anymore, but no one is there to support you either. And that’s exactly where a church community offers something that isolated, individual spirituality cannot: you know you’re not alone. Not with your doubts, not with your needs, not with who you are.

That is not an argument for living in communes or for completely disregarding the individual. Personal conviction and individual experience remain essential, especially in our church. But I believe that you cannot fully realize your calling as a Christian if you are a completely isolated individual. Not in faith, and actually not outside of it either.

A body, not a collection of separate parts

The apostle Paul uses an image to illustrate this that I find deeply moving every time. In 1 Corinthians 12, he describes the community of believers as a body—not as a collection of separate individuals who just happen to be gathered together in the same space, but as a body in which each part has its own function, and in which no part can say that it does not need the others.

That image is more than just a beautiful metaphor. It is a direct challenge to the idea that one’s faith—or one’s search for meaning in general—can be kept entirely private. An eye that cuts itself off from the body is not an independent eye. It is a dead eye. The same is true of people who want to experience their spirituality entirely on their own. It may seem like freedom, but it is really just isolation with a nicer name.

Why People Still Drop Out

Still, that doesn’t fully explain why so many people who do feel that warmth end up leaving anyway. I think it’s rarely about the faith itself. It’s about commitment. People feel the pull of community, but are put off by the level of dedication that community demands.

That, by the way, isn’t a problem unique to religion. Any form of lasting commitment—a marriage, a friendship that lasts for decades, a team you’re dedicated to—demands something from you that goes beyond casual interest. We live in a time that confuses commitment with restriction. But it is precisely that commitment that gives a community its true value. Without dedication, you don’t have a community; you have a collection of spectators.

An invitation, not an obligation

I think many people who are wondering today whether our church still has anything to offer them are actually struggling with precisely these two issues. They don’t want to be controlled, and they shy away from commitment. That’s understandable, in an age that constantly teaches them that freedom means not being tied down to anything.

But perhaps it’s the other way around. Perhaps the emptiness that so many people feel isn’t the result of too much connection, but of too little. And perhaps a church—despite all the justified historical criticism and despite the mistakes that every institution inevitably makes because it is run by people—is still one of the few places where that connection is structurally offered. Not as an obligation, but as an invitation.

So if you’ve been asking yourself that question for a while now: just come check it out. Not to belong right away, but to experience what a community can do for you—one that doesn’t let you go the moment things get uncomfortable. The rest—the rules, the structures, the answers to the big questions—will come later. First, there’s simply the question of whether you’re willing to stop searching alone.