Why the Gathered Church Matters: A Biblical Case for Lord’s Day Worship

By Drew von Neida

Editor’s Note: Faithful church life is not built on convenience or novelty but on the ordinary means of grace Christ has appointed. In this article, Drew von Neida explains why the gathered worship of the local church is not optional, but essential to biblical Christianity.

The church of Jesus Christ is not sustained by novelty, convenience, or sentiment. She is sustained by Christ Himself, who walks among the lampstands and shepherds His flock through the ordinary means He has appointed. Chief among those means is the gathered worship of the saints on the Lord’s Day.

From the beginning, the people of God have been a gathered people. The Christian faith is not private in its practice, nor optional in its expression. Christ saves individuals, but He saves them into a body, and that body is visibly expressed when believers assemble together in His name.

The Scriptures speak plainly. We are exhorted in Hebrews 10:25 not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but rather to gather all the more as we await the return of Christ. This exhortation is not framed as a suggestion, nor is it conditioned upon convenience. It assumes a real, physical gathering, one in which believers see one another, hear one another, and participate together in the worship of God.

The Nature of the Church as a Gathered Body

The church is not an idea, nor is it merely a collection of individuals who share similar beliefs. The church is a covenant community, gathered under Christ’s authority, shepherded by qualified elders, nourished by the preached Word, and marked by the ordinances Christ has given.

Throughout the book of Acts, the pattern of the church is unmistakable. Believers gathered to devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to prayer, to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread. These acts require presence. They require submission. They require a shared life.

Online Church Is Not Church

Online resources may serve as temporary helps in extraordinary circumstances, such as severe illness, persecution, or true impossibility. But when such means replace the ordinary gathering, they do not preserve the church, they redefine it into something Scripture does not recognize.

A livestream may transmit information, but it cannot constitute a gathering. Watching a sermon, however faithful the preacher or helpful the content, is not the same as assembling as the church. The church does not exist as an audience, but as a body. A body that never gathers is not functioning as a body at all.

Several essential elements of biblical worship cannot occur through online “service”:

• The Lord’s Supper cannot be rightly administered apart from the gathered body.
• Corporate prayer loses its congregational character when reduced to individual listening.
• Mutual exhortation, correction, and encouragement require presence.
• Shepherding assumes proximity, oversight, and known lives.

The New Testament never conceives of believers as disembodied spectators. Christianity is incarnational because Christ Himself came in the flesh. The church reflects that reality by gathering bodily before God.

When the Gathering Is Suspended

It must be said, gently but clearly, that any institution that suspends the regular gathering of the local church for reasons other than extraordinary providence ceases, in that moment, to function as a church. What remains may still be religious in appearance, well intentioned, and socially meaningful, but it no longer bears the marks of Christ’s church.

When the worship of God is canceled for holidays, travel schedules, staffing concerns, or convenience, the priority has shifted. The gathered worship of Christ is no longer central. The church begins to resemble a social organization rather than the pillar and support of the truth.

This is not a small matter. The church exists to exalt Christ, not to manage calendars. The Lord’s Day belongs to the Lord. It is not the possession of pastors, volunteers, or congregations to dispense with as they see fit.

Those who support such decisions often do so without malice, yet their support reveals a misunderstanding of the purpose and function of the church. The gathering is not one activity among many. It is the defining act of the church’s life. To treat it as optional is to misunderstand Christ’s call to His people.

Rest, Shepherding, and Faithfulness

It is right to care for pastors and servants. Scripture speaks clearly of rest, wisdom, and proper ordering of labor. Yet the solution to fatigue is not the suspension of worship, but the faithful ordering of ministry.

The irony should not be missed. The Lord’s Day, given by God as a gift, as a day of rest and worship, is often the first thing surrendered in the name of rest. True rest is not found in the absence of worship, but in drawing near to God with His people.

2 Timothy 4:2 — “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season…”

Christmas and the Incarnation

If ever there were a time when the church should gather, it is during seasons that proclaim the great acts of God in history. The incarnation of Christ is not a sentimental story, but the foundation of our salvation. God took on flesh and dwelt among us.

To suspend the gathering of the church in remembrance of Christ coming among His people is deeply inconsistent. Rather than displacing worship, such seasons should deepen it. The church exists to sanctify time by the worship of God, not to retreat from it.

A Pastoral Appeal

This is not written to shame, but to shepherd. Not to wound, but to call back to first principles.

Christ loves His church. He purchased her with His blood. He gathers her by His Spirit. When the saints assemble on the Lord’s Day, heaven bears witness to a people who confess that Christ is worthy, regardless of cost.

May we recover a holy seriousness about the gathering of the church. May we order our lives around the means Christ has appointed. And may we never trade the glory of Christ-centered worship for the comforts of convenience.

The church gathers because Christ calls. And where that gathering is absent without necessity, the church itself is absent as well.

Reflection Questions

• How does Scripture describe the gathered nature of the church?
• What elements of worship require physical presence?
• Have I treated Lord’s Day worship as essential or optional?
• How can I reorder my priorities around the gathered means of grace?

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