I AM the church, as is any born again believer.
I don’t belong to one to get saved, I became part of the true body of Christ when I got saved.
Membership in a church is as meaningless as belonging to a club.
The root of the word “communion” is also the same root as the word “community”. That’s IMPORTANT to the understanding of this entire concept.
Jesus did not expect us to go out and worship Him by ourselves under a tree in the woods, He told us that we needed to “do unto others”, in other words He said we needed to embrace our ‘community’ in charity and in diverse ways. We fall terribly short when we think that we can do it all alone.
In my local parish, we don’t even call ourselves a “church”, we are a “community”. Part of worshipping God is being part of that Community. The same community we associate with when we take “communion” is the one we are called to serve. But it’s more than that ~ when you SERVE the community you worship God. Worship is not confined to “going to church” because part of worship is doing what God asks you to do. And God’s requirement of you does not end by going to church weekly or even DAILY. We are ALL called to serve outside of “church”.
Yes, going to church is important, and yes, our feeding on spiritual food is very important as well, but we are also called to SERVE just as Jesus served. You cannot serve yourself, you can only serve within a larger group, and that service takes place in the COMMUNITY where you are.
Part of worship is doing those things that please God, such as the service we do for others, which often ends up to be an end in and of itself. But part of worship is that we conform ourselves to what God has asked us to do, in this case, the Mass as well as service to others. It is not up to God to accomodate us, it is up to us to conform to God, so if our obligation to God is to go to Mass as well as to serve others, then that is what we do.
It is a hard thing to understand, perhaps, and harder when you are younger and full of the idea of “justice” and “right” but God is in control here. You can disagree, but you can’t change what God has chosen to be the “rules”. Your job is not to convert God to what you believe, it is to conform your life to the Will of God. That may be a hard thing to understand in our “anything goes” world, but, you see, perhaps with God, it isn’t “anything goes”, so you are forced to choose between “anything goes” and “God”.
Finally...........
“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”.
~ John 6:53
At the Last Supper, Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me.” That is a pretty specific command. “Do this”. He didn’t just say “remember me”. He told us exactly how to celebrate His passion, death and resurrection for the redemption of the world.
You can’t do this alone.
When you are baptized, you are baptized into the Body of Christ, the Church.
It is important to worship with others members of the church - not as an isolated member cut off from the rest of the body.
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” ~ Hebrews 10:25