Hi Pink Frog. I certainly agree with the general idea of gathering together because it is very scriptural. But, on the other hand, there are many (millions?) Christians who have been going to church for many years and have hardly grown. I guess this is because of genuine lack of spiritual hunger. They have been relying on the Sunday morning sermons to feed them, hoping this would be enough. This would explain why most Christians, born-again Christians, are undernourished, and many of them backslide. No wonder Jesus said:"When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)(I had to use my concordance to find this verse). Also, i must sadly admit that all I have learned about the Christian faith since I got saved in 1975, I have learned mainly OUTSIDE the church, sad to say. What I mean by "outside" is my own home, where I used two main tools: BOOKS AND COMPUTER. This is not to say that fellowship is not important because it is in God's Word. But what is fellowship??? One example that comes to my mind immediately is Chrisitan penpalling. Two years ago, I started penpalling with 2 Christians of my age. And we haven't stopped talking ever since, greatly learning from each other (on spiritual matters) and yet we have never met, simply because I live in London and one lives in Oregon (USA) and the other the North of England. Still, would it be quite correct to call this "fellowship"? Fellowship has to be more than a few or a lot of bodies gathered together under a church roof.
All this to say that I haven't been going to church for the past 2 years and missed it very little. But since January 9, I started to attend a homegroup where there are only 4 or5 of us. But the dynamics of the group are simply electrifying. We share our excitement about the soon coming of the Lord. That is something I could not do while I was going to church because the pastor there never bothered preaching or teaching about the endtime (too controversial, I guess). Looking forward to hear from you, Pink Frog.