It is through the community of the church that we receive necessary help from our fellow believers in Christ, as we learn together, pray together, serve together, teach and exhort each other, and admonish one another. Scripture even teaches us to confess that there is no salvation outside of the assembly of his believers.

Someone once said to me, “For you people, your life revolves around the church.”

The fellow who made this observation knew a lot of Reformed people, and he was genuinely interested in the Reformed faith. He was not being critical, but he did wonder about how much energy and attention we always put on the church.

In his eyes, our life was all about church.

To an extent it’s true. For many of us, a good portion of our non-working hours each week is taken up with church-related activity, whether that is attending public worship on Sundays, or participating in Bible study and/or Catechism classes, going to consistory and committee meetings, socialising with people from our congregation, or doing some other church-related event.

Meanwhile, our children might attend schools which are closely connected to the church. And during the week we might even do most of our business and trade with church people.

We spend a lot of time ‘on’ the church, or ‘at’ the church, or in the general orbit of the church.

What is the point of all this activity? We know that it should not be about ‘doing church’ for its own sake, of course. We shouldn’t be busy maintaining and building an institution simply because it provides us with some personal or community benefit. 

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