Why bother with church?

Your church is a miracle. If you didn't know that, this book will help you understand why. New believers and old believers with conflicted feelings about the church will especially benefit. Read this excellent book to learn how to love Christ's people better and worship God more.

This book about the church is a gift to the church. It's clear, winsome, and needed, reminding us of the great reality of the body of Christ called to live, worship, and minister together in his name until he comes. I'm grateful for this biblical call to remember who we are and what, by God's mercy, we get to be and do as his gathered people.

We couldn't be more excited about this book. Especially in our day when people look for reasons to reject the church, this book is a necessary encouragement. Sam expertly engages readers with what the Bible says, and brings the truth home through with illustrations that stick with you. We're eager to see church members, ministers, and cross-cultural workers benefit from Why Bother With Church?

I'm so glad Sam wrote this book. Many in our day say that they like Jesus, but not the church. But is it possible to belong to the Head without being part of his visible body? Obvious in practical importance, Why Bother With Church? is a wise, basic, and winsome invitation to embrace the riches of communion with Christ’s new society.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book. Brimming with Christ-exalting passion and practical instruction, it ably addresses many questions people are asking about the church. Without minimizing its flaws and deficiencies, Sam helps us see that the church is a miracle of grace, destined for eternal glory as the bride of Christ. Sam Allberry has a God-given gift for presenting potentially complex topics in a way that is biblically faithful, skillfully concise, pastorally wise, and culturally relevant. Why Bother With Church? is the latest example.

An excellent and hugely important book. Up-to-date, punchy, humorous but penetrating, Sam makes the case that we need to rediscover the huge relevance of the church in our Christian lives.

Sam Allberry’s book ends with the question, ‘Why on earth would I not bother with church?’, and by the time you’ve read it, it seems a very reasonable question. One of the Good Book Company’s ‘Questions Christians Ask’ series, this little book is jampacked with what the Bible says about why we should bother with church.
Allberry begins by explaining what church is: it’s not a gathering of 2 or 3 believers over a latte, a building or a denomination. It is God’s family. He reminds us that the local church is not a part of the universal church but that it is the church of God in a particular locale. ‘Church is… not a meeting you attend but a body you belong to.’ (p30). He addresses some tricky questions, including ‘Hasn’t the church done more harm than good?’ and ‘Why are there so many denominations?’ and gives very clear answers, which we would do well to be able to articulate, since they seem to come up so often in ministry to prisoners.
He also addresses the issue of why we need to belong to a church once we are a believer. Essentially it’s all about needing other believers – people who will encourage and serve us, and whom we can encourage and serve. He says that by refusing to belong to a local church, we are depriving the church of a member of it’s body, along with the particular gifts of that member.
Allberry also explains that a small group cannot function as a church because it is not big enough to have a balanced representation of the local community or of spiritual gifts, it doesn’t have the authority to exert church discipline and cannot share the Lord’s supper in a way that demonstrates whole church unity. A small group is just that – a small group of people who belong to the local church. He gives a clear summary of Biblical church leadership and different contemporary leadership styles, but I’ve run out of room and you’ll just have to read it!