You grew up sitting in various pews, but after getting a dose of higher education, you’re not really into anything that smacks of organized religion. After studying the Crusades, learning what jihad really means, and reading ten bloggers rant about the Pope’s pedophile cover-up, you figure that all of these manmade institutions aren’t credible. The Church—any church—is just a nasty, manmade construct designed to give uneducated, needy people some scaffolding.

On the other hand, you also think that God probably exists, and Jesus and the Buddha and Mother Teresa were onto something good. You don’t want to adopt the atheist’s combative edge or the agnostic’s arrogant philosophizing, so you snuggle down into the cozy netherworld of Spiritual Living. It’s a one-size-fits-all accommodating worldview fed by books like Eat, Pray, Love and The Secret. Spiritual Living lets you pray for wisdom or wear cool T-shirts or even go to silent retreats where you can stare at the ocean for a long time. It’s tapas-style dining where you order tasty little samples of  religion’s best ideas—without the prix fixe risk. Come to think of it, if you don’t trust the chef to choose for you, it might be better to pick a different restaurant altogether.

To the complete rejecters of the spiritual life, I applaud you, at the very least, for not being lukewarm on faith, a stance that Jesus couldn’t tolerate. You run your bathwater icy cold, and you bear the discomfort with a certain measure of pride. But to those who love constantly fiddling with the temperature, let me give you a few reasons why historical, orthodox Christianity is worth a second look.

Showing up at a local church is healthier than staying at home.

When you tell me you can pray, worship, serve, and grow nearer to God in your own way and on your own time, does it really happen? Do men and women, who are designed for fraternal loyalty and the fellowship of others, really have the self-discipline and encouragement to pursue faith in isolation?

The style of church, meeting times, and congregation may seem unorthodox, but that is not the point. You don’t have to attend a traditional, wear-a-dress, Sunday-morning congregation.  But an authentic Christian believer doesn’t go for too long without craving the mutual encouragement and accountability of others in the faith. You are sure to tell me about an example or two—maybe even in your own life—when faith was sustained without community, but I will probably be skeptical.  Tiny fringe groups who aren’t tethered to the historical faith are doomed to drift here and there, vulnerable both to error and narcissism.

As long as people are in charge, the Church will mess up. Get over it.

If you’re waiting for the Church’s track record to get better before you sign up, don’t bother. If you recognize that God uses the Church in spite of its members’ faults, you’ll step inside, thankful that your own jackass tendencies won’t disqualify you either.  The Christian church throughout history has let everyone through its doors—the sick, lonely, rich, educated, ghetto-dwelling, insane, arrogant, beautiful, and homely.  If you weren’t welcome at your last church, then try again.  That particular congregation had it wrong and will figure out their mistake before long.  Another congregation might be further along, so don’t give up so easily.

The Church is a hospital where you get to be both a doctor and a patient.

When you join with what the Bible calls “the Body of Christ,” you have access to a radically different kind of HMO (Hope Maintenance Organization). On your healthiest days, God calls you to restore and love; on your sickest days, you have others tending to your bedside. People who ditch the church have cancelled their spiritual healthcare plan.

The Bible is precise in its instruction to the Christian churches. Its members love and restore, offer correction and spiritual rehabilitation, care and are cared for—all in a tightly interconnected (and even mysterious) web of love. The Church becomes the hands and feet of Jesus Christ himself. Those who have made spirituality a one-man show can neither love or be loved by any person besides themselves.

Orthodox Christianity changes people from the inside out, not the other way around.

Every other major religion, including the Judaism from which Christianity was born, requires external obligations of perfection and discipline: be, do, obey, perform.  The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us something entirely different: a supernatural grace that carries us from death to life. This transformation causes our spirit to crave obedience and good works in a way that makes little sense to the rest of the world.

Participating in random, spiritual acts like focused breathing, charitable acts, or positive thinking relies on either willpower or manipulating biology—precisely why people like it so much. It produces a veneer of good will and well being that we are likely to find among secular humanists and do-gooders. It’s the solution that takes us only half way, by giving us a semblance of peace in this life, but with little power to affect the human soul or eternity.

The Kingdom of God is bigger than your individual needs.

In the giant narrative that is God’s story, God is the main character. Our attraction to Spiritual Living is borne out of our fascination with having the leading role, writing our lines every morning depending on our mood and personal whims.  In another essay, I wrote that we must let God write the script and cast his own play—that having seven billion screenwriters is a bad idea. (“If we had it our way, I can only imagine the freakish movies full of nothing but leads. Wedding scenes with a hundred brides and no guests, funerals with nothing but corpses.”)

Smart people like to be in control, and submitting to a God that Christians frequently call Lord might feel like ancient feudalism.  At some point, however, you will be broken beyond belief, unable to fix yourself. It will eventually happen when your own desires lead you to spiritual desperation. And if you still don’t believe me, then you haven’t reached the end of your life yet when everyone succumbs to the universal fate we call death. Death cannot be fixed.  It’s one plot line you can’t write out of your play.

So, these five reasons may seem paradoxically selfish. On one hand, becoming part of orthodox Christianity asks you to give it all away while, on the other hand, it gives you everything back.  I suppose that’s one of the great mysteries of my Christian faith, where its doctrine includes crazy reversals like how King Jesus was actually a humble servant and when I die, I live.

If you decide to simply be spiritual—and you do reject orthodox Christianity—at least keep your eyes wide open while you’re wandering the roads. They lead to nowhere in particular toward nothing specific for reasons not too clear. But don’t panic: Jesus and his Church won’t be far if ever you should change your mind.