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"But I'm not good enough to go to church."
Have you ever felt that way or maybe thought the exact same thing? It's a remarkably common feeling.
It's also absolutely, totally, 100% wrong. The idea that we must be good, let alone perfect, to attend church is completely incorrect. If we were as good and as perfect as we think we must be to attend church, we'd have no need for church, or to be on earth for that matter. Beam me up, God, I'm finished baking. If that's your feeling, you're half-baked. Get back in the oven, you need some more cooking-- at a higher temperature.
The less perfect we are, the more we need church. The purpose of church is to minister, to meet needs. Don't you know that it's hurt, imperfect people who have the greatest needs? It is in ministering to them that the church can most fulfill its purpose, can be at its greatest. It's those times when we are the lowest or have done the most wrong, those times when we most feel we can have nothing to do with church, that we actually need it the most, and that it most needs us.
Look, if you don't have a church that will support you when you have done wrong, lift you up when you have fallen, pour ointment in your wounds, and walk with you along the long and narrow path toward heaven-- you don't have a church. If that described the place you attend, you need to get out and find a real church. If that described your entire life experience with churches, you've never known a real church, just a bunch of pompous, self-righteous posers.
If you feel you can't speak with your pastor about anything, and have it be confidential and his response non-judgemental and non-condemnatory, you need to find a new pastor. (By "non-judgemental" I mean about you, not necessarily what you may have done. To not identify sin as sin is an even greater sin. But to condemn you and say there is something wrong with you as a person is wholly unacceptable and mistaken. Don't expect a pastor to coddle you in and approve of your wrongs, but do expect him to accept you as a person as you are and lead you in the light of God's word and toward the right paths.)
Overcome your feelings of unworthiness and drag yourself to church as soon as the doors are again open. God calls you worthy and that's enough worthiness for anyone. Even if you don't speak with anyone about the way you feel or what you may have done, trust God to comfort and guide and instruct you, to reach out to you as you reach out to Him. Make the effort, and keep making the effort. It's more than worth it.
(Romans 10:9, John 3:17, John 5:24, John 1:12)
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