We go to church because we want to
Yeah? That's a good reason? The Bible is full of peoples' wants. What happens tomorrow if you don't want to?
We don't consider missing a church service a mortal sin. THAT is freedom in Christ, not slavery to an institution.
This is not Christianity; this is the individualized LaZBoy Chair that Iscool has so eloquently described to us. It is the freedom of Martin Luther's every milkmaid to write her own theology and believe her own religion.
This is what Jesus, Paul, Peter and John so vehemently warned against, and which is the basis for the Protestant Reformation.
Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 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.
Now it's your turn. Show me from Scripture where we're commanded to meet every Sunday (once a week) and that it's a sin if we don't.
While you're at it, could you please find some reference in the Bible about the distinction between mortal and venial sins?
IF we don't want to go to church, we don't go...We go because we want to...Not because we have to because we don't have to...
We go to church for fellowship, encouragement and worship...We go to hear the word of God preached...
We don't go to church to eat a cracker and pretend the cracker is Jesus Christ...We have no need to...Jesus Christ lives within us, even at home...
We are the church...Whether we are at a church building or we are wandering the isles of Wal-Mart...
I feel sorry for you guys that are constantly searching for Jesus; praying to dead people in hopes of getting a message to Jesus; coming in contact with a cracker thinking THAT is the only Jesus you'll ever know...