There was a time in North America when almost everyone went to church on Sunday. It was respected as a family day of rest, for all to worship God. While weekly attendance remains higher in the United States, for a lot of Canadians, Sunday has become just another day, an extension of our rushed lives: getting groceries, doing yard work, taking kids to soccer, getting caught up on the workload from the office.

Many people now claim that they are spiritual, but not religious. In other words, they didn’t like church the way they remember it, so they feel they don’t need to go to church now. They prefer to read, or maybe watch a service on TV occasionally, keeping to themselves.

So maybe you don’t need to go to church…if you find hugging your TV or computer monitor gives you a real feeling of inner warmth (or was that an electrical shock?), and that human contact is highly overrated.

You don’t need to go to church if...you are certain you have nothing to be thankful for, or don’t need a way of publicly demonstrating your thanks to God.

…you’re confident that your children or grandchildren are learning from school, TV or the Internet, the moral and faith guidelines they’ll need throughout their lives.

…you think that Oprah or Dr. Phil have better advice for your life than Jesus Christ.

…you’ve led a life free from sin, guilt and regret, and have no need to be forgiven and redeemed.

…your life is so complete that you never need the support of people who care about you, to celebrate the good times with you, but to also be there when life gets really hard.

The people at church know their lives aren’t perfect, but by coming together and sharing in the love of Christ, they are finding more hope, joy and peace in their lives than the day to day world could ever provide. If you haven’t been to church in a while, you are bound to be pleasantly surprised. No one church is right for everyone –in fact, you might want to try out a few of them, until you find the one that’s right for you.