Go To Church

Summary

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Thinking Fellows Podcast – "Go To Church" (March 29, 2026)

Episode Overview

In "Go To Church," the Thinking Fellows—Caleb Keith, Adam Francisco, Scott Keith, and Bruce Hillman—tackle the issue of church attendance within the American Christian context. The discussion centers on why Christians should attend church, the pitfalls of legalistic attitudes toward attendance, and the importance of viewing church as a place of gift rather than obligation. The conversation moves from critiques of "drive-thru" or utilitarian church experiences to a positive and theologically rich justification for gathering with the local church.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Problem with Legalistic Approaches to Church Attendance

• Adam’s “Drive-Thru Salvation” Rant
  • Adam expresses frustration about treating church like a transactional drive-thru experience, or as a work necessary for salvation. He critiques messages that imply missing church imperils salvation:
    • “It turned church attendance on Sunday morning in particular into this work, if you will, an idol that you have to do this.” (11:56)
  • Adam relates a real-life incident (10:11) where it was implied to him that missing church—for something as exceptional as a once-in-a-lifetime event—would endanger his standing before God.
• Scott’s Critique of the Pharisaical Approach
  • Scott points out the danger in making attendance salvific:
    • “You’re turning what is gift into a pharisaical type of law where you’re trying to connect every jot and tittle and make sure that you have made yourself holy enough before God by this act. And that is more dangerous than missing church.” (16:34)
• Comparison with Catholic Sacerdotalism
  • Adam draws a parallel between certain Lutheran attitudes to the Catholic idea of needing a priest for grace, warning that both share a functional reliance on externals rather than Christ (17:02).

2. Pastoral Anxiety, Cultural Trends, and the Decline in Church Attendance

• Declining Numbers and Pastoral Overreaction
  • Caleb notes that 51% of American Christians don’t attend church even once a month (24:03), prompting anxiety among pastors that can lead to legalistic messaging.
  • Bruce notes this condemnation often targets those who are otherwise deeply committed, over lesser infractions.
• Youth Sports & Societal Pressures
  • The group agrees that societal trends like youth sports often take priority over church, but warn against painting faithful families as part of the problem for rare absences (25:13).
• Online Church and Its Dangers
  • Caleb raises concerns about livestream services replacing in-person gathering (50:22), suggesting that convenience can dilute the meaning of "gathering."

3. Correcting the Record: The Positive Case for Church

• God’s Call to Gather
  • The panel emphasizes that the primary reason to attend church isn’t pragmatic benefit but because God calls us:
    • “The answer to the question … is because God calls you to it, and that should be enough.” – Bruce (36:07)
• The Gifts Received at Church
  • The church is where Christ’s gifts—Word, Sacrament, Absolution—are objectively delivered (38:21).
    • “He commands it for you because that’s where he gives you the gifts. So this is where the gifts are promised to you. Thus he says, go get the gifts here.” – Scott (37:06)
• Church as Community and Mission
  • Caleb stresses that not only do you need the church, but "your church needs you" (38:06), highlighting the communal nature of faith and the transmission of the faith to others (especially children).
• Habit, Rhythm, and the Shape of Christian Life
  • Adam commends Paul’s stress on the habit (“Let you not stop being in the habit of gathering together…,” citing Hebrews 10)—arguing that regular assembly shapes one’s identity and rhythm for Christian living (48:11).
  • Bruce echoes the value of church as a sacred, set-apart time:
    • “When you cross into the gathering, the Sunday morning gathering, … you’re entering into a new time. … You reenact through the readings, through the singing, through the preaching, through the sacraments.” (49:00)

4. Cautions Against Fear-Based Motivation

• Law and Gospel Distinctions
  • The Fellows repeatedly denounce any messaging that going to church earns or guarantees salvation.
    • “You are saved by the shed blood of Christ alone. Period. The end. Your faith in him connects you to his salvation…” – Scott (38:21)
  • Attending church is not a checklist for grace, and absence for legitimate reasons (illness, travel, deployment) doesn’t sever salvation.

5. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Scott (Re: Missing Church for Good Reason):
  “If you have a hard and fast, like idolatry, like Bruce said, kind of rule about this, you’re really missing the point. You’re missing the point of both the third commandment … You’re turning what is gift into a pharisaical type of law…” (16:34)
• Adam (On Heartless Attendance):
  “How many times in the Old Testament is God condemning Israel? Because they’re going through all the motions, they’re doing all the sacrifices, but their heart isn’t in it at all...” (16:43)
• Bruce (On the True Reason for Attendance):
  “The real reason to go is because God’s a loving Father and calls us. He gathers us out of our life and out of the nations to be surrounded by His Word.” (36:42)
• Caleb (On the Problem of Privatized Faith):
  “If we think that the benefit of the Christian faith is merely a personal relationship with Jesus Christ … you can just audit by checking your feelings: ‘I still believe in God.’ … That’s not the Christian life.” (42:46)
• Adam (On the Church as Sacred Rhythm):
  “The rhythm itself is important. There’s something about being in that whole habitual process...the patristic way of looking at church...You’re entering into a new time.” (49:00)
• Scott (On Mutual Need in the Church):
  “You need church and the church needs you. … That your children need that, and that your wife needs that and your family needs that and the other people in your community, your neighbors, need it too...” (47:01)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 07:14 – Introduction to the problem: “Drive-thru salvation” and legalism in church attendance.
• 10:11 – Adam’s story about controversial statements regarding missing church and salvation.
• 16:34 – Scott’s critique of turning church into a salvation-earning act.
• 17:02 – Adam’s Catholic parallel: Church as distributor of essential grace.
• 24:03 – Discussion of church attendance statistics and pastoral anxiety.
• 36:07 – Bruce on God’s calling as the ultimate reason for church.
• 37:06 – Scott on church as the locus of divine gifts.
• 42:46 – Caleb on privatized faith and communal necessity of church.
• 49:00 – Adam and Bruce on habit, rhythm, and the meaning of sacred time.
• 50:22 – Caleb on dangers of online-only worship and church livestreams.
• 51:19 – Plan for a future episode on livestreams and online church.

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Conclusion: Why Go to Church?

The Fellows conclude that church attendance is not about earning grace or checking a religious box, but about receiving what God freely gives—His Word, forgiveness, and community. It is both command and gospel gift: necessary for Christian life, not to secure one’s salvation, but to be nourished, to serve others, and to live out the reality of belonging to Christ's body.

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Key Takeaway:
Go to church not out of fear or obligation, but because God calls you there to receive His gifts, support your community, and live as part of Christ’s body on earth. The rhythm of gathering shapes your life, your family, and the world around you.

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Transcript

[Adam Francisco]

Foreign.

[Caleb Keith]

Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows podcast. My name is Caleb Keith and I am joined by Adam Francisco, Scott Keith, and Bruce Hillman. The Thinking Fellows is part of the 1517 podcast network of shows. You can go to 1517.orgpodcasts to see all the shows that we have there. You can also find all of the 1517 podcasts where you listen to podcasts, whether that's Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And you can find some of our shows, like the Thinking Fellows in video format on YouTube. So you can go subscribe now to that. And if you've been enjoying the thank you Fellows podcast, you should go subscribe to the main 1517 YouTube channel. It's free and consequence free. And you will get to see some of the videos that we've been producing there. We put out two to three videos a week over there. Some of them related to the topics that we do over at the Thinking Fellows. Others just sort of. We're investing in high quality production of video over there. And so we think you would enjoy that very much.

[Scott Keith]

You should ask Adam, Caleb, how amazingly good I was this past weekend at telling people to subscribe to both the Thinking Fellows podcast and the YouTube channel.

[Bruce Hillman]

He was so much so that I don't think he even mentioned his book.

[Scott Keith]

I did.

[Bruce Hillman]

Somebody else did, but are you going to applaud me? I did it as well. Which is.

[Scott Keith]

You did do it as well. Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah.

[Scott Keith]

So that's two weekends in a row for me, Minnesota and Texas. So, I mean, you should be looking for that YouTube subscriber bump just because I'm back trotting it out again.

[Caleb Keith]

Actually, now that you say that, go, go to the analytics here.

[Bruce Hillman]

Can I say something first? So you know how you guys always rib me for being an alleged Thomist?

[Caleb Keith]

Yes.

[Bruce Hillman]

Which I'm not.

[Scott Keith]

Oh, gosh, come on.

[Bruce Hillman]

Your dad started his being.

[Adam Francisco]

Are you gonna give a proof now on why you're not a Thomist?

[Scott Keith]

No, he's gonna give proof that I am.

[Bruce Hillman]

He started his talk. He had a PowerPoint thing, slides, slide deck, presentation, whatever you call it. And the very first slide was a prayer from none other than the dumb ox Aquinas.

[Caleb Keith]

What the heck is wrong with you?

[Bruce Hillman]

I know, it was hilarious.

[Scott Keith]

It wasn't an apologetics presentation, it was apologetics prayer.

[Bruce Hillman]

But it was hilarious. I was like, this is really interesting.

[Scott Keith]

I can't believe I'm doing this. Thematically, it worked really well for what I was doing, didn't it?

[Caleb Keith]

That's a good prayer.

[Bruce Hillman]

And Thomas is a fine thinker. In a big scheme of things.

[Scott Keith]

I did study blackfire.

[Bruce Hillman]

Yeah, I know. I do think blackfires is awesome.

[Caleb Keith]

Prayers from those saints with whom we have disagreements are some of the best way to still benefit from them.

[Scott Keith]

If I were to buy another set of books, which I probably won't, that you're not going to, because, you know, you have some sets of books that you're, it's not like you're going to sit down for reading every book, but the coolest set of books I think I've ever seen is that Blackfriars Suma Theologi. That's kind of like the lobes classics. It's got the Latin on one side and the, the Blackfires translation of the English and the other. And it's just like a good size. And the, the COVID it's just, it's awesome.

[Bruce Hillman]

Yeah, it's like libraries were built for that book.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, it's amazing. The other ones that are like that are the, they're not the lobes. But what are the ones in the, in the blue dust jackets that are.

[Adam Francisco]

Oh, the classics.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah. I have the. Well, you got me the Homer.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

And they're gorgeous.

[Scott Keith]

The whole set on the wall at. What's the big bookshop there? Why can't I think of it Blackwell's, Black Wells? Because I was seeing Black Friars. I'm like, I'm not black Fr. Black Wells. Oh, the whole set on the wall there is just, it's just.

[Adam Francisco]

Oh, I'm looking at the Black Friars Suma Theolog. It's very nice.

[Scott Keith]

Oh, very expensive, isn't it?

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah.

[Scott Keith]

Let's see, what's it, what per volume? Like. Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

Who publishes it? Black Blackwell. Cuz then it's super expensive now.

[Scott Keith]

It doesn't. Black Friars, Pokemon. Well, I mean, I don't know who prints it. I don't know who prints it.

[Bruce Hillman]

We should probably get moving. People are like, these guys are not only.

[Caleb Keith]

This is.

[Adam Francisco]

People are like, I gotta go check. It's 60 volumes total. Yeah, no, it's, it's $2,474 for 60

[Caleb Keith]

volumes for the whole set.

[Adam Francisco]

Not terrible.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, that's not terrible.

[Caleb Keith]

That's not terrible.

[Scott Keith]

That's not terrible. I got down here at the podcast.

[Caleb Keith]

We got a bunch of new ships from CPH for that.

[Scott Keith]

Oh my gosh.

[Caleb Keith]

That's, I'm sorry, that's.

[Scott Keith]

You should see. If you've never seen these, it's worth just like holding one in your hand. They're just gorgeous.

[Adam Francisco]

60 volumes plus one index. But that's, I, I, I'M the more I'm looking at this. I think that's for paperback. I don't think they print the hard.

[Scott Keith]

No, no, no.

[Adam Francisco]

You.

[Scott Keith]

You want the. The hardback with the dust covers.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah, they don't make that one anymore. You got to go get that one.

[Caleb Keith]

They only make the.

[Bruce Hillman]

No way.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah, according to the. Well, I will say guys, Cambridge Publishers, that's still only like $30 a book.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, no, that's pretty good for academics. I thought for sure it was going to be 100 and something a book because I've seen them, I've watched they have them in blackfires in like the lecture hall back in the. They're gorgeous.

[Bruce Hillman]

For that cost, I could replace my exhaust manifold and catalytic converter on my truck.

[Scott Keith]

Oh, my gosh. Just stop with the catalytic converter, go

[Caleb Keith]

to a pick and pole and go get a cat.

[Scott Keith]

I can't believe you still haven't done the thing that I told you you should try. Oh, you told me why.

[Bruce Hillman]

You told me get it off without lifting.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, you told me why. Okay, well, now we're both just like

[Caleb Keith]

insinuating, committing fraud here on the podcast. Was that.

[Scott Keith]

No.

[Caleb Keith]

Well, okay. So what were we going to talk about today? This was a great aside. Okay. What we were going to talk about today was going to church and why you go. And the reason. Well, there's a couple of reasons. I've been doing some stuff about this, which seems weird to talk about going to church, even though I think it's important. And there's a lot of bad ways to talk about going to church. And I think that's how we're going to open today. Because the other thing was, is conveniently, as I was writing something about this, Adam went on a rant, a storm about a tear. One might say a tear one like Monday morning or Sunday afternoon or something about church. And so, Adam, you had a complaint or you used a phrase. Maybe I'm not getting it completely right and you can correct me, but you said you were tired of church being treated like drive through salvation or something like that.

[Bruce Hillman]

Yeah, maybe I said that if it was early in the day,

[Caleb Keith]

I'd be curious what something like that means, or at least what the frustration is. Because I think obviously what you were saying isn't like, oh my gosh, we need to stop this whole church nonsense. But was an attitude, an attitude towards church or a disposition or a proposition about going to church that didn't. Doesn't match up with our theology.

[Bruce Hillman]

Yeah. Well, let me say something first, just to make sure that we get this out front. One should go to church, right?

[Scott Keith]

Correct.

[Caleb Keith]

Yes, we should.

[Scott Keith]

Please do go to church preaching, not despise preaching word, but hold it sacred

[Bruce Hillman]

and gladly hear and learn it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's, I, I would say that even that that's a. Almost dogmatic. A dogmatic claim. Okay. And I'll.

[Adam Francisco]

But within that context, within that context,

[Bruce Hillman]

I'll also say that this is this so the story I'm going to tell you, Caleb, but just so you know, this is not some excuse from me or anything. You know, I, I go to church and regularly, you know, 52 years, not every Sunday, but most Sundays. There have been times when I was deployed or whatever where I missed church or. And then there was. There have been a couple times, I can count them on one hand where like deer season or wrestling season that we've had to cut out a church early. Actually not church, but the whole church thing you. Because we go to church and then my wife and I teach Sunday schools and I've had to cancel or cut Sunday school 10 minutes short. Right. So just saying, you know, here's the story, Caleb, here's why. What kind of sent me through the roof like these and I'm going to actually generalize it so people can't triangulate and find it and make it an even bigger deal than it was for a bit. You know, there is every. I've seen it for years. You know, there's always some. There's a couple of things I've seen. One is a rant from like a pastor or you know, somebody, some well meaning, very pious individual about youth sports and how those often or other things like that that take the place of church. And so people don't who maybe are members of a church don't attend church during the season or what have you. And there's a rant about that or you'll see people almost like virtue signaling about how they're staying open on a Sunday morning even though there's like two feet of snow with a layer of ice underneath and so on and I shouldn't be bothered by it.

[Scott Keith]

But Adam's like, if I were a better person.

[Bruce Hillman]

But then you know when. Yeah, like, so there's a context where I gently pushed back. I said, well, I mean, yeah, one should go to church, but let's say you miss it for like because all of a sudden your kid gets this golden opportunity to go to, I don't know, Shanghai to compete in the Olympics or something like that. Is it, is it okay. You know, and. And the response was no one. How. What. How was it phrased? I'm not going to get it exactly right, but it was like one who does not go to church, who replaces church for something else, will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's the way it was put. So I, being a cynic, responded and said. I said, well, I mean, it's a relatively low number, but there's been maybe a dozen, two dozen, maybe three dozen times over the course of my life where I've missed church on Sunday because I've been sick, deployed or whatever. And, I mean, the backlash was just amazing.

[Scott Keith]

That you've missed church 36 times in 52 years.

[Bruce Hillman]

Well, I don't know how many times, but it's been. And this is not me virtue signaling. This is maybe virtue signaling my wife. Because there's. Even when I'm not feeling like back when we lived in California, when the swell's coming in, I'm like, it'd be great to surf.

[Scott Keith]

Oh, baby.

[Bruce Hillman]

No. Just even mentioning maybe skipping and going surfing put the fear of God in me. Not because I thought I'd lose my salvation, but because I didn't want to be judged by certain people in my household.

[Scott Keith]

That happened. We could go together and I could absolve you, and you could absolve me, and I could preach to you and you could preach to me, and then we could go get a sick wave.

[Bruce Hillman]

So anyway, I mean, the thing you accept me off, Caleb, is this claim that if one does goes somewhere else on Sunday morning instead of church, they will not inherit the kingdom of God, I thought. And then when the conversation persisted, I mean, it got to the point where it was said that there's. How else will one be forgiven then if they don't go to church, hear God's word, receive holy absolution, receive the Lord's Supper, and so on. And it was not said this way, but it turned church attendance on Sunday morning in particular into this work, if you will, an idol that you have to do this. Certain. Yeah. But then, you know, now that I'm reflecting on it, after you told us, Caleb, last night, what we're going to talk. And I was like, oh, man, I'm going to get myself in trouble.

[Caleb Keith]

I shouldn't. I think you told me to drink the angry juice again, too.

[Scott Keith]

Go have some angry juice.

[Bruce Hillman]

But I've been thinking about this, and part of me wonders if it's. I think there's a theological problem, to be sure, with this. But I wonder if part of it's like kind of sociological or psychological, just like pastors who are concerned, rightfully so, but declining attendance, they sort of double down and invent kind of little theological things that are a little add to what we believe to encourage people by the law to get to church. And I don't know, it did. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong.

[Scott Keith]

Can I give an example of a time when you might miss church that seems like it's maybe unavoidable and you're still going to go to heaven? I don't know. I'm just going to throw that one out there. So this past weekend, you and I taught at this apologetics conference in Dallas, Texas. Was Friday night, like, until pretty late now, I think. Well, we didn't get back to the hotel till 11, right. And then all day Saturday, like all day Saturday, like morning until again, like 9 o' clock Saturday night. And we were there 75 people there was meant to be kind of a little homey. Little conference at Wax Face in Texas was great. It's awesome. You, me, Jacob. Why can't I think of Jacob's last name?

[Caleb Keith]

Smith.

[Scott Keith]

Smith. Jacob Smith. And I can't also think of the other guy's name, Adam.

[Bruce Hillman]

Gosh.

[Scott Keith]

Louis Marcus. Answering questions about the faith, helping people learn how to share the faith and defend the faith in the public square and in their homes and schools, and I'd say also doing quite a bit of like, direct proclamation to these people as necessary. But in order to get back to our families, it required both of us to fly Sunday morning. Now, I don't know about you, but by the time I landed at 11:30am, California time, it would have taken me another two and a half hours to drive home, which would have been 2pm by the time I got home. My church would have been long over by then. Now, my other option would have been to just, I guess not fly till this morning, which would have made this recording impossible and in which case I would have still missed church at my church, which is, I think, the important thing there in a lot of ways. I could have gone to maybe Doug and Kelsey's church yesterday, but, you know, sometimes even for good reasons like this apologetics conference, life gets in the way. And if you have a hard and fast, like idolatry, like Bruce said kind of rule about this, you're really missing the point. You're missing the point of both the third commandment, missing the point of Luther's explanation to the third commandment. You're missing the point of the means of grace in general. You're missing the point of the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins. You're missing the point of the absolution. You're even missing the point of the sacraments, I would say. And you're turning what is gift into a pharisaical type of law where you're trying to connect every jot and tittle and make sure that you have made yourself holy enough before God by this act. And that is more dangerous than missing church.

[Adam Francisco]

I've said it well, how many times in the Old Testament is God condemning Israel? Because they're going through all the motions, they're doing all the sacrifices, but their heart isn't in it at all. So they think all that God is after is some sort of checklist of obedience. And then that's fine. I mean, part of what we're doing on the Sunday morning gathering is we're gathering to not only hear God's word and receive the sacraments, but also to worship the Lord. And if you're just saying, well, what's most important is that you're just there, that you're physically there, but your heart cannot wanna be there. And your heart can be at the beach and your heart can be thinking about all sorts. And that's just as you know, that's better than not going at all. I don't know where that comes from. What's weird, when I was hearing you say this, Adam, and I know the operative theology is different, but functionally, where it lands is really the same as the Catholic Church with the intercessory model. You have to go to church because the priest has to intercede for your mortal sins. And you have to go to penance because you need the priest to intercede for your mortal sins. You can get your venial sins taken care of on your own, but your mortal sins, which are sins in the Catholic Church. Paul says, somewhere in the New Testament there's a sin that leads to death. And they built this whole theology off that. And so they say a mortal sin is a sin that kills your salvation. And so if you commit that sin, you're no longer saved unless the priest intervenes for you and restores your salvation. And the scary thing is that the Church says, well, we don't always know what a mortal sin is. I mean, some things we do, like murder and stuff like that. But lying can be a mortal sin. So the point is you just have to always go to church. You just always have to go to penance because only the priest can distribute the proper sanctification and grace that you need for that mortal sin to be overturned. I know the operative theology in this setting is different, but it sort of lends itself to the same kind of idea that there's something that the church distributes that you absolutely need, and without it, you're going to lose your salvation.

[Scott Keith]

I think it's the same. And again, I've been banging my spoon in my high chair about this for about 15 years, but at the end of the day,

[Bruce Hillman]

I never heard this.

[Caleb Keith]

Gen X yells at Cloud. That's a good one.

[Scott Keith]

We, and I'll say specifically our church, has been heading down this path of kind of reestablishing that the pastor, by virtue of ordination, has some sort of indelible character that is different than you and I when he absolves. It's different than when your wife absolves you for the sins you committed against her or some such thing, and that only there's a certain character that allows him to distribute the sacraments and make them effective. It's dangerous and it's not over. So you're never going to find this, in other words, dogmatically laid out in one of our dogmatic texts like this. But it seems like it's being taught in a way that has influenced, I'd say, maybe the younger guy's theology, in my opinion, negatively. Now, I hope at some point we get for all of the reasons why we think we should go to church, because I do think that you need to go to church. True, as. As much as you know when you can make it go and don't have lame excuses for not going, but not because you're earning something. And I'd even, I'd even say not because your heart's in it. Bruce, I'm sorry about that. Oftentimes my heart is with the waves. Maybe we should say following that one along. But I go to church there for precisely that reason in a lot of ways, to have that sin, even convicted and forgiven.

[Adam Francisco]

I guess the point I was making is a little different. I wasn't saying that you need to have the, you know, you need to have all the feels in order to go. What I'm saying is, is that, well, that's good. Telling someone that going in and of itself is salvific, but they're there and they don't want to be there is sort of ridiculous.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah, well, we can probably make a transition to the positive here with. I guess what I'll do is a final add on to this. Adam. I mean, I was reading Your rant in real time, which was amazing. Somehow you caught me, like, right after church with this. And the convenient part for me was I kind of found it helpful because I have been writing a talk. I gave it for the first time two days ago on Saturday at a local church here. It probably needs some refining, but it went well. That was titled something like, you need your church, and your church needs you. And it's basically a presentation on church attendance, which is always funny. I kind of tried to open with that. Coming to a room of people who are so committed to church that they show up on a Saturday Bible study and telling them all the reasons they should go to church is kind of hilarious in one way. And it's also one of my base complaints about that type of sermon. Yeah, well. And that type of sermon that you discussed as well, where pastor comes and complains about all the different types of people who aren't here on Sunday.

[Bruce Hillman]

Yeah, I got to interject real quick here, because there's probably people who listen to this, who I go to church with. This is not my home church. Just for the record, everybody, this is not Bethany Lutheran Church. If you're looking for a church, you should go to Bethany Lutheran Church. Our pastors are awesome. They are. Thank God we have them, because they rightly handle and divide God's word. So just so you know, friends, that

[Scott Keith]

doesn't need some of that angry juice.

[Caleb Keith]

No, that's fine. I'm glad to qualify that. It's not your congregation. I think that's good. It's easy to accidentally, like, rumor about people on a podcast who you're actually not rumoring about, but it is universal

[Bruce Hillman]

enough in our denomination, I suspect, other denominations, that there is this sort of. It's subtle.

[Caleb Keith]

I mean, I asked the room to, you know, I asked people to, like, raise their hand if they've heard a sermon where one of the opening stories or the premise was about people who were at soccer practice. And it was pretty universal. And they've all, like, traveled and been to different churches and had different pastors and things like that. So it's not. It's not the. You know, it's a thing.

[Adam Francisco]

So the difficult priest once opened a Christmas, like a Christmas Mass with, well, I see all the CEOs are here.

[Scott Keith]

Oh, I kind of like Christmas and Easter only.

[Adam Francisco]

Welcome back.

[Scott Keith]

The problem with most of it is it's just not witty enough. Like, that's pretty good.

[Caleb Keith]

So there's a couple takeaways. Right. One, I think Adam's onto something with the anxiety of the decline of churches in general by membership numbers and by weekly attendance. We're also at this weird thing that I've mentioned a couple of podcasts before that has become apparent to me and was one of the reasons I started writing about this, which is 51% of Christians in America, self identified Christians in America don't go to church regularly. And regularly was like a pretty low standard at like once a month. I think it was like once a month or once every other month. So you're talking six to 12 times a year. So that's already a low bar to hit in most cases. And so then you're talking 51% don't even hit that bar. How bad is it if you, if regularly it was even three times a month, you know, something like that. The problem is I think a lot of the anger and the frustration at this, as you just explained, Adam, gets targeted at the people who are the most like loyally church going and volunteering, who then happen to miss right for something. So I agree replacing church with children's with youth sports has been a disastrous part of our society.

[Bruce Hillman]

I agree too.

[Caleb Keith]

If you then but if one of the families who's there 50 out of 52 Sundays a year then goes to one tournament on a Sunday, are they part of this systemic problem in the United States? Well, no, they've obviously made some choices that have avoided that the rest of the year and they've made now maybe one sacrifice or exception or a handful of sacrifices or exceptions throughout the year in order to do something different. So I find that you're then attacking the wrong people, which is the most committed out of fear that they will become like everybody else who isn't going and has already replaced church attendance with youth sports. The other problem is you find that the incentives to go to church, the worldly incentives, end up being low for people such that the reason youth sports and some other things have taken over that Sunday time are because there is a perception largely and there's been some great work on this. I can think of the book Family Unfriendly that I think we've recommended on this show many times before, but talks about this where parents believe that their children are missing out on opportunities that aren't just about fun, that aren't just about teamwork, but actual advancement in their life and in their society and in their culture. And that they will be left behind by their peers if they don't attend this practice, that practice, this tutoring session, this, you know, this game, whatever it is that they'll genuinely be left behind and harmed. The question then is not how do I attack the sports, but how do we get parents and people and future parents in our congregation to believe that there is genuine harm by not going to church without falling into this other side of the ditch. Which I think is absolutely correct. Which is that, like, if I miss a Sunday, I'm going to hell or I'm so anxious about missing a Sunday. And one of the worst examples of this I saw was initially during COVID where, yes, I think a lot of churches ended up making long term bad decisions about this and closing and all sorts of other stuff and people didn't know what was going on. So we should give a lot of leeway to people who did make decisions that harmed them or their congregations or whatever. Those people should be forgiven for those things and we should try to move on. But I saw the panic in congregations in the Missouri Synod and individuals online posting about this. Don't post about your emotions, folks, but about their anxiety about missing weekly Lord's Supper for maybe it was even two weeks if their church was like, you know, extreme, stay open that like some harm was going to befall them. The reality is that means we did a really bad job catechizing people when weekly Lord's Supper became a common reality in the Missouri Synod. Because the supper isn't about the fear of not receiving it. It's about the great blessing that Christ is delivering to you when you gather together to receive it. This is another flip side of that coin. Has been extremely powerful to people, but also is bad theologically. Like if you happen to have to miss receiving the Lord's Supper for a period of time. Not even just a week, a month, a couple months, three months, a half, a year for extraordinary circumstances. Not Covid, but even something else in your life. Christians throughout the entire history of the church have done so without jeopardizing their salvation.

[Scott Keith]

Right. This is the other side, though, of this indelible character thing is that the. The church has. I'm not going to call it sacerdotal, but it's become more sacerdotal than I remember it being. I think Adam, being a little older, might remember that too. There's a heavy emphasis on There used to be a good balance about how we talked about the Supper. It was this connection to the Promised Word. There was a mystery going on there that it was the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, connected to the bread and the wine, connected to the body and blood of Christ and the Word is what gave it power in just sort of modern way of talking about it. Within some Lutheranism, it seems magical in a sense. And that magic is connected, it seems like to the power that the pastor has during the words of institution and the distribution. And that's not organic to our theology. And it's.

[Caleb Keith]

I also think there was just a.

[Scott Keith]

It has. It has done what you're talking about. Yeah. If you, if you do see it as kind of magical, I'll say it that way. You will be worried.

[Caleb Keith]

I also think there was rhetoric that was really bad that there was better reasons to say have weekly communion than this one I've heard a thousand times or more, which is, well, I mean, you want to skip this opportunity to do what Jesus says kind of thing. Like, well, if you don't have weekly communion, are you really taking seriously what Jesus says? That's not the best argument for weekly communion. That's an argument out of like a weird type of fear and shame that we. The most effective type is the positive argument about the gift that is being given and the opportunity to distribute and receive that gift. And that if nothing is in our way from distributing and receiving that gift more often, then we can do that rather than saying that it's somehow not taking God at his word or not taking God seriously or disrespecting or dishonoring Christ to do it less frequently than this. That's not the case and would cast a lot of shame onto Christians, even in our own tradition, even specifically in the Missouri Synod, in the not too distant past and then in the middle past, and then even in the origins of our movement. So I think you just. You gotta watch out for that. And that's the same thing with church attendance, where I think you actually do have to tell people. I said this a lot on Saturday. I think you do have to tell people that you want them to go to church. You have to tell your children that it's important to go to church. You have to say it out loud. You can't just assume it. There's a lot of.

[Bruce Hillman]

And show them by example and show

[Caleb Keith]

them by example and not just kick them at the curb for certain things.

[Scott Keith]

I think you're right, Adam. I think, of course, showing them by example, but I think that most Christians think that that's going to be enough.

[Bruce Hillman]

Right? Yeah.

[Scott Keith]

This is like kind of like the, hey, well, I was married and had kids, so by my example, I think you're gonna know you should get married and have kids. But they actually don't unless you Tell them. So I do think, yeah, show them by example. But I think you have to say it. Sure. And I mean I know it's set in your house, so I'm not telling you anything that you don't know. But I think there's something to that. I do want to get to all the reasons why you should go to church. Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

But then if we're going to anti

[Scott Keith]

church apologist at this point, if we're

[Caleb Keith]

going to tell people to go to church, which I think we're all in agreement, you absolutely should and must do, then how would we positively frame this instead of doing it out of fear? Because I think our complaint is out of fear. It draws out telling people to go to church purely as an accusation. And I do think there is something with that. When you tell people to go to church, it's going to be the law and they're going to feel accused. They're going to be accused when you do this. But when we talk about the church descriptively and we talk about why one would go, we're in the realm of these gifts of the gospel and I think we should thoroughly explain that before we do that.

[Adam Francisco]

Can I say something that might be crazy or naive but builds off what you guys have said, which is in my experience the problem with this whole conversation is that it always lends itself towards a kind of what I'll call a pragmatic utilitarianism. And I think that's the temptation that both sides doesn't matter if you go to church, whatever version of that you have, or you can go sometimes just it's not important to the, like you're going to lose your salvation. But we'll. What both sides though I hear always doing is they have this kind of practical utilitarianism. So essentially what they're trying to do is they're trying to say these are the reasons why church is worth its benefits or not. And so there's this kind of, you narrow down the, well, you know, even asking the question why should I go to church? If you're asking it in any other way other than like I'm a new Christian and I just don't understand like why if you're asking it in any other way, you're lending yourself towards this practical utilitarianism where you're trying to, what you're really asking is is this worth it? Tell me why this is worth it. And the problem I have with that is even if you, even if you give a kind of the good gospel reasons which, which we'll give. But I'm just saying if you give that as the way to solve the problem. The problem with that is people just add up the gospel reasons and they go, well, those benefits aren't really necessarily worth it. Or I don't feel them that way, or I don't experience them that way, or I know they're happening, but why can't we do this or that? So I think, and this is where I could be naive or crazy, the answer to the question in every case other than the one where the person's a new Christian just doesn't have any context of church is because God calls you to it, and that should be enough. Now, there are benefits that come from God's calling, which we can talk about. But if we make the argument for church about the benefits, then people just often go.

[Caleb Keith]

They weigh them against.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah, they go, well, I'd rather be at a baseball game, or I'd rather be out surfing, or I'd rather be out. The real reason to go is because God's a loving Father and calls us. He gathers us out of our life and out of the nations to be surrounded by His Word. And of course, when he does that, he gives us benefits and we should talk about that. But if we make the. If we make the reason for going the benefits, I just think we fall into this salesmanship that the world is always doing, like, well, give me the practical reasons why this is worth it. And that's not really. For me, though.

[Scott Keith]

I want to clarify one thing too that you said, Caleb, you said there's other reasons that we were talking about originally are law and there's benefit. And I agree completely with that.

[Caleb Keith]

The phrase you should go to church as a command.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, well, of course it is. So the third commandment is under God is part of God's law. But the problem with the way Adam presented it at the beginning with this conversation that he had isn't that these people are handing out the law. It's that they're handing out the law as though if you fulfill it, it's actually going to save you. That is not very open. That's ridiculous. Right. It takes the presumption that if you could keep the law, you'd be saved. Okay, well, one, you can't. Two, that's not what the law is actually for. The law is actually to convict you and condemn you of your sin. At the end of the day, Bruce is right. Why do you go? It's part of God's third commandment. You can add to that. I Love. The thought of this talk that you're doing is that you need church and the church needs you. Because why does God command it? Does he command it for some arbitrary reason, just because he's God and he can do it because he's your father and he says, do it and says, jump. And you say, how high? No, he commands it for you because that's where he gives you the gifts. So this is where the gifts are promised to you. Thus he says, go get the gifts here.

[Caleb Keith]

And if you don't show up, guess what? Other people don't get those gifts anymore. Because if we all do that, if the community of the church only makes the faith personal and we all and everybody there chooses not to go on Sunday morning, nobody gets gifts at the

[Adam Francisco]

end of the day.

[Scott Keith]

This is not a thing that if you do it, you will be saved. You are saved by the shed blood of Christ alone. Period. The end. Your faith in him connects you to his salvation in that personal way where God looks at you and says, you are my child. Now, that happens by the preaching of the Word and the indwelling and in working of the Holy Spirit. That preaching of the Word is promised at church. Right. The gift of baptism is promised at church. The gift of the Lord's Supper is promised at church. Has it, throughout time in history happened other places? Well, it's happened in other buildings, but every time it's happened in other buildings, it's still been the church, because the church is that community of all believers throughout all time who have ever trusted in Christ Jesus as the only hope of their salvation. And so this gets to be circular, where we go, that's law, and this is gospel, and that's benefit. I get that. That's all necessary to rightly divide God's Word, as Adam said. But at the end of the day, the problem with the initial conversation is the idea that somehow by doing this thing, you can earn God's favor. You cannot. You will not. Christ has God's favor alone, and you get his favor by being in Christ. And that's the only way.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

I think if you don't go, you lose his favor and you're barbecued.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

The church is also. The church is a. I hope that

[Adam Francisco]

soccer game was worth it.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah.

[Scott Keith]

No, it was a state wrestling match.

[Bruce Hillman]

Oh, sorry. No, it wasn't that at all. Our wrestling stuff has all been on Saturdays.

[Scott Keith]

That's true. You were getting. Getting all your texts about Bobby making people cry on Saturday.

[Bruce Hillman]

That's true. No, that's Friday. Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

Oh, that Was, Dang it.

[Adam Francisco]

Can you imagine if the thief on the cross, like, made it overnight, like a few times, and then he was like, he didn't die. And Sunday he didn't go to church and be like, you were going to be with me that day in paradise. Not anymore.

[Caleb Keith]

Church is interesting in the New Testament as a word as well. Right. Because ecclesiastical shows up in a very narrow set of contexts. First in the ordination of the church at Christ's declaration that Peter's confession is this rock upon which he will build his church. So you have this. You have this establishment of the church via the confession of faith that Jesus Christ is our Lord, the Son of the living God.

[Bruce Hillman]

Isn't it like Peter?

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah, that's right. It's Peter, not the confession.

[Adam Francisco]

That's at that church you're visiting.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And then basically what you have after that is Acts and the title of the epistles, which we've shortened in all of our Bibles to not include this word. But every single one of these has

[Scott Keith]

led to the church at Rome.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah, to the church in Rome and to the church in Ephesus and to the church in Galatia. Right. This is what the full name of these letters are. And the reason why is the churches are geographic gatherings of Christians and they're the result of coming to faith. So the terminus of coming to faith is then gathering with other Christians externally. So the final thing is not how's your personal relationship with Jesus? It's that every time that somebody has a personal encounter with Christ or is personally converted and brought to faith in the entire story of Scripture, they are then brought in publicly to the family. It ends in a baptism done by other Christians. It ends in a household being brought entirely to the faith and joining the church, becoming part of the church, or starting a church in their household or whatever it may be. And so this is kind of the thing is it's just descriptive of Christians and Western society. I think one of the reasons you have like, this 51% number and you have a lot of people comfortable is if we think that the benefit of the Christian faith is merely a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that you can just audit by checking your feelings. And like, I still believe in God. I still believe in God.

[Adam Francisco]

Cool.

[Scott Keith]

I can't stand that phrase. I just don't like it.

[Caleb Keith]

No, I don't care about your personal relationship with Jesus. I care about whether or not you've received the words of forgiveness and faith externally of your personal feelings.

[Scott Keith]

Well, it's just, it's so weird feminine and sort of like counseling culture.

[Caleb Keith]

Yeah.

[Scott Keith]

You know, it's like, hey, what do I do if my relationship with Christ is broken? Well, obviously, go talk a counselor about it. You and Jesus need to go to couples therapy.

[Adam Francisco]

The phrase, though, does. It does come out of the failure of the mainline churches prior to that whole phrasing, to give any assurance outside of maybe, like, well, you were baptized as an infant or something, and now you're supposed to just know that you're. I mean, that personal relationship language came out of a real failure to communicate an assurance to people.

[Scott Keith]

Yeah, but how do I get or strengthen this personal relationship by the work that I do.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah. That's always where it goes wrong, Right?

[Scott Keith]

Yeah.

[Caleb Keith]

So I'll say this. Every Christian has needed the church. So even these traditions which try to, like, ask this question, do I really need to be baptized to be saved? Well, guess what? Every single orthodox Christian tradition on the planet baptizes people.

[Scott Keith]

You mean Adam and I go surfing on Sunday and just talk to each other about Jesus?

[Caleb Keith]

I just want to say everybody who's ever asked this question, do you really need to be baptized? Is baptized. I've never had an unbaptized person, so it's a facetious question because it's really just about debunking.

[Scott Keith]

I know. It's like trying to get out of something that's really hard.

[Caleb Keith]

It's like every time if somebody asks you that question as a Lutheran, do I really need to be baptized? Ask them if they're baptized. They will be baptized, like, as a guarantee they will be baptized. The reality then is that every Christian has needed the church. You have needed a preacher to come to you, an evangelist or a local preacher or a family member. You have needed someone to apply baptism to you and to give you this and that. When you then become a member of that church publicly, through baptism or profession of faith, even, or whatever it is that publicly aligns you with that body, and then you begin to not go. That is now not available for other people. That's kind of what I'll say. If the believers stop gathering. The thing that you needed to get faith with Christ and to have even your relationship with Jesus, if you want to use that language, will be gone. It's not there. It's there because the believers gather. And so you also do this thing where you assume that the church will always be there for you when you need it again or when somebody else needs it, you just close your eyes and you go, well, somebody else has taken care of it. It'll be there.

[Adam Francisco]

And can I just add locally, that's true, but of course we are promised the church will never pass away and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

[Caleb Keith]

So. Correct.

[Adam Francisco]

I just don't want people to hear it as a false hypothetical because the

[Caleb Keith]

faithful will be gathered by the Lord. This is because the gospel does have the effect that it gathers people together. I think that's part of the promise here is for that. So I just think there's a type of, there's a type of selfishness that can be addressed with this, that also you got good gifts. I don't think there's any Christian today, again, orthodox kind of trinitarian Christian today who would deny that from the church they've received great gifts either the proclamation of the gospel, the forgiveness of sins, a baptism, whatever it may be. Now we are gathered together both to receive and, and to deliver those gifts to other, first and foremost our children and our families and then the world. Literally to be out into the world delivering that.

[Scott Keith]

Isn't it just enough to say that God commands you to be there? He commands you to be there because he wants good for you and he wants to hand over his promises consistently to you. And those promises are promised to be there on Sunday morning when a faithful pastor gets up and absolves your sin and preaches God's law and his gospel to you and hands over the body and blood of Christ into your mouth to you and sends you home and back out into the simple world with the benediction. That's why you go and that you need that, and that your children need that and that your wife needs that and your family needs that and the other people in your community, your neighbors, need it too, at your church. So go to your church, be a part of it, help make it run when necessary. All for those reasons.

[Bruce Hillman]

I like that. Offerings, like for us and for you. Meaning like, you know, it's just sort of a, it's not just this inward facing thing, but also for the life of the world.

[Caleb Keith]

Right.

[Adam Francisco]

You know the scripture Paul uses at least in one passage. I don't want to make it a proof text, but just, you know, let you not stop being in the habit of gathering together, you know, for church. He does use the sense of habit there. So I'm not trying to make an excuse here that you don't have to go all the time because I think obviously his overall point is you should be going as much as you can. But I like that he calls it a habit in the sense that, you know, it's become a rhythm in your life. It's just part of the routine and the rhythm that makes you and your family who you are, that you're in step with something other than just all the rhythms and kind of metronomes, that the world is setting and that there's this other kind of rhythm that's quiet and powerful, that, like Scott says, contains within it all these gifts. And it's not just that. It's not just that you can get the gifts. Of course you can by going to church. But I think the important thing Paul's stressing, at least in that passage, is that the rhythm itself is important. That there's something about being in that whole habitual process. I mean, in the ancient way, like the patristic way of looking at church, when you cross into the gathering, the Sunday morning gathering, you're kind of. You're entering into a sacred space. But what that means is you're actually entering into a new time. Like you're experiencing the age to come that's already, but not yet. But like you're profoundly aware of that kingdom coming. You reenact through the readings, through the singing, through the preaching, through the sacraments. You sort of reenact Old Testament history, and you look forward to what God is doing because of Christ. And they saw church as this whole kind of rhythm reset, and then you were sent out at the end of that. So I think we also need to see church as part of this bigger kind of motion that God is putting us into and not just this singular event that happens on Sunday and then the rest of the week is its own thing. And that gets. I don't think. I don't hear a lot of people talk that way anymore.

[Caleb Keith]

I think that's very good. One of the things that came up in this talk that I'll add briefly is that I suggested that churches audit the possibility of removing their livestreamed services from their congregations. Because if you look at this pew thing, a lot of people since COVID are under the impression that when they watch a church service on Facebook or YouTube, they're going to church. And so they'll say, I don't go in person, but I go online. And it's a really kind of bad thing.

[Bruce Hillman]

What a weird world.

[Caleb Keith]

And for most churches, it seems like it's a difficult conversation to have because it seems like it would be all positive with no downsides. Well, we're reaching our shut ins. It's free advertising in the community on the Internet about this church. Who we are what we do. And what could possibly be the downside? It's free. It doesn't really cost us anything. Might as well just do it.

[Scott Keith]

Can I recommend that we do that in another episode that seems like a whole episode unto itself.

[Caleb Keith]

It probably is my only point where

[Scott Keith]

maybe we ought to get like, I think it'd be kind of cool if we do that episode to get a pro pastor and a com pastor.

[Caleb Keith]

Whoa.

[Scott Keith]

That would facilitate. But like guys that know each other and that are cool with each other and sort of do a conversation because it's. That's a. That's a good conversation to have. But I got to get a dent pulled out of my truck.

[Caleb Keith]

So it is a good conversation. It would take a whole nother episode. My only point in the story of suggesting it was that some of the back and forth in the room over this I thought was very good to especially just have people thinking about it. But one of the things was, well, what if we have members traveling who they can't find a church on vacation, they look for one, they can't find a good church to go to. Wouldn't it be better that they went to this online service that Sunday? And I said, you know what? Those are not the people I'm worried about to Bruce's habit thing. Like, somebody who's on vacation looking for a church is not the person you need to be worried about missing church on Sunday. But those are not the people who are going to disjoin the body of Christ over missing one Sunday. And so I think for a lot of this too is I just hope that there's a good balance is always an awful word when it comes to theology, but that there's a difference between the command to go to church, the talking about it, the saying it out loud, the teaching people about it, the proclamation of the gifts that happen at church, and the sort of the freedom and the comfort that our salvation brings that going to church on Sunday or missing a Sunday or a service or handful of services is not the difference between you and the gates of hell, that Jesus Christ has already conquered that for you, and you're not going to earn it in this life. So I think that's it, brother. Well, guys, thank you for listening to this episode of the Thinking Fellows Podcast. Do subscribe in your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube so that you can get the show regularly. And if you enjoyed this conversation, share the show with a family member or friend of yours to see if they would gain something from it as well. We thank you for listening. We'll catch you next time.

[Scott Keith]

Bye.