Here is where I think I may have agreement with many in the patriarchy movement, that we agree the church’s worship is in fact the primary seat of worship for the Christian. Nevertheless, for those not with us, and for any evangelical independent types who exalt even private personal worship to the primary place, let this article be a corrective.

As important and valuable as family worship and personal worship are, as much as these need to be stressed and emphasized, we must not lose sight of the fact that the primary seat of worship for the Christian is with the people of God, the Church, not the family, not as individuals.

It is to the Church that God has given the keys of the kingdom and sacraments (Matt. 16:18; 18:18-20). It is the Church that exercises ultimate oversight over those for whom Christ died (Acts 20:28). It is the Church that is the pillar and support of the Truth (I Tim. 3:15). Other scripture examples could be given to show other aspects of the Church’s primary role; for now, however, permit me to share thoughts on Ps. 87:2 by men who are probably respected, if recognized, by all who read this.

“The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.”(Psalm 87:2)

“God delights in the prayers and praises of Christian families and individuals, but He has a special eye to the assemblies of the faithful, and He has a special delight in their devotions in their church capacity. The great festivals, when the crowds surrounded the temple gates, were fair in the Lord’s eyes, and even such is the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. This should lead each separate believer to identify himself with the church of God; where the Lord reveals His love the most, there should each believer most delight to be found. Our own dwellings are very dear to us, but we must not prefer them to the assemblies of the saints.”
(C. H. Spurgeon)

“God has a love for the dwellings of Jacob, has a gracious regard to religious families and accepts their family worship. Yet He loves the gates of Zion better, not only better than any, but better than all, of the dwellings of Jacob. God was worshipped in the dwellings of Jacob, and family-worship is family-duty, which must by no means be neglected; yet, when they come in competition, public worship is to be preferred before private.”
(Matthew Henry)

“The Lord loves Zion herself; that is, the church, and therefore has chosen it for his habitation, took up his rest and residence in it, has founded it, and set Christ as King over it, and by whom he has redeemed it; and he loves her gates, the public ordinances; he loves them that come to Zion’s gates, and wait and worship there, and who enter in and become members thereof; and he loves what is done there, he being there publicly prayed unto, and publicly praised by a large number of his people; where his word is faithfully preached, and reverently attended to, and his ordinances truly administered, and the graces of his saints exercised on him: wherefore, because all this is done socially, and in a public manner, and so much for his own manifestative glory, he esteems these more than all the dwellings of Jacob; the private habitations of his people; yet he has a regard to these, the bounds of which he fixed from eternity, and where he was delighting himself before they were in being; and he loves the persons that dwell in them, and what is done there in a right manner, as closet and family worship; but when these are put in competition with public worship, the latter is preferred unto them, because done by more, and more publicly; Zion and its gates, the church and its ordinances, are preferable to all the dwellings of Jacob put together.”
(John Gill)

“No doubt the prayers which the faithful put up to heaven from under their private roofs were very acceptable unto him; but if a saint’s single voice in prayer be so sweet to God’s ear, much more the church choir, his saints’ prayers in concert together. A father is glad to see any one of his children, and makes him welcome when he visits him, but much more when they come together; the greatest feast is when they all meet at his house. The public praises of the church are the emblem of heaven itself, where all the angels make but one concert.”
(William Gurnall)