I talk and write about Hebrews 10:24-25 quite often:

Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Obviously, when the church assembles, it is supposed to be doing far more than sitting in a pew and listening to a sermon.

When I bring up Hebrews 10:24-25, I am generally pointing out that most Sunday morning services do not allow for any “one anothering,” much less “provoking” one another to love and good works. Today, though, I want to point out that our Sunday morning services provide a critically important service.

I don’t want Sunday morning services to stop. I want them to be understood for what they are, outreach services. They are places that Christians can use to find Christians with whom they can love, serve, and encourage one another. In most cases, they won’t be able to do those things on Sunday morning, but they can meet Christians with whom they can “one another” during the rest of the week.

I also need to credit churches with Sunday morning services with knowing that their Sunday morning services are not enough. Many churches today provide small group meetings under various names (cell groups, life groups, home church, etc.).

I do wish that every time a Christian, including our pastors, quoted “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,” that they added that the assembling of ourselves together means stirring one another to love and good works and exhorting*. I wish that pastors warned Christians that serving Jesus is not and cannot be a private thing. I wish also that they warned us of the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13) and the deceitfulness of riches (Matt. 13:22). All this is important, and it only rarely happens.

*Note: The Greek word for “exhort” has a wide range of meaning. I think those meanings are best summed up in 1 Thessalonians 5:14.

On the other hand, what does happen on Sunday mornings is helpful. As said, it is a place to find Christians. When a person realizes that they need to get their lives right and decide it is time to follow Jesus, they all know they can go to a church on Sunday morning and find help. God forgive us that sometimes that help is pitiful, but often that person can find someone to help them get started and to stick with them along the way.

So when I quote Hebrews 10:24-25 and complain that we don’t do what it says, nor even know what it says, please don’t interpret me to mean that Sunday mornings are useless. No, I wish we would all know that Sunday morning is not “church.” If it were church, we would be one anothering. It is, though, outreach, and that outreach is extremely effective.