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What’s the point of going to church for worship? With all the competing demands on our time, sometimes it’s easy to forget why the Body of Christ needs to gather for worship in the first place. If we are honest with ourselves, however, we will acknowledge that we can get worn down by the frenetic pace of life and even begin assuming that God would want us to sleep in and stay home rather than make the effort to be in God’s House.

To guard against that idea, consider these words from the hymnal Lutheran Worship: “Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise…. Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most true and sure is his name, which he put upon us with the water of our Baptism. We are his. 

    This is why it’s so important to gather in public worship: We need what only God can give us in His Word and Sacraments – forgiveness, life, and salvation. It’s as His blood-bought, redeemed children that we find our true strength and identify. Strengthened by His gifts, we then return to the work He has given us to do.

        We confess the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to be truly present and distributed under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. We therefore follow the ancient Christian practice of close(d) communion out of concern for the spiritual welfare of all who commune (I Corinthians 11:23-30) as well as a confession of unity of faith (I Corinthians 10:17, Romans 16:17-19).