How do I help my friend who has stopped going to church because it causes her anxiety?

Here's a friend who certainly cares and seems willing to give time in order to help. First, slow down. Fears and anxieties can be a bit dangerous when they're left unattended. Jesus teaches the cares of this world can choke out the Word of God. So we want to attend to those cares. Invite their story. Begin with when anxiety intruded into a worship service. Can a person identify the actual threat? What is it that makes him or her feel unsafe and without escape? What could possibly happen? Are there insecurity in some of the free-form conversations that can happen before or after a church service? Then work your way backward. What events and matters of the heart are attached to fears and anxieties? Guilt, for example; dark thoughts that could be provoked by a worship service, shame, fear of being seen, fears of being known, memories of old events that the person prefers hidden. They could be provoked by a worship service.

Grab a passage together. One of my favorites is one Peter 3:18: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” Go slowly through the passage. Fears and anxieties, they want to move rapidly, they're looking for an answer, they're looking for some relief. The pace you're looking for is going to be a bit slower. To consider the passage together, to see that this is the Christ who incontrovertibly, in his suffering for sins, demonstrates his care and love. They're on full display. Perhaps you can answer a question together. A question that you find in Matthew 6:25: Do you think that I don't care, or do you know that I care for you? Now, this could be a startling question for somebody who can get lost in their anxieties. All of a sudden, their anxieties are being interrupted, and of course fears are an occasion to know yourself a little bit better and to know your God better. Do you believe he cares? Your goal is to know him, to be certain that he cares and he loves, even to the point where you begin to boast about him to others.

Now we get to the specific anxiety. Perhaps ask, why even bother going to church? Why do this particular work? Why do we do this when something like this can be so hard? The person needs a reason, a compelling scriptural reason. They can ask other people for help. Obviously, the reason surrounds how the Sabbath is a time set apart to gather and listen and worship. We are a people brought together by the Spirit, and we want to express that unity whenever we can. The person needs a compelling reason from Scripture, and you can pray that person through Scripture to find that compelling reason. And then you begin to consider some ideas together. What are the best places to sit? How would you greet other people? What are some of the basic conversations that you can plan? Perhaps you sit in the back. Perhaps you remind the person, "I will be with you. Though I won't always be with you, there'll be times perhaps I'll be involved in conversations." Then you review how when you are singing songs together, your attention is on the words that you're singing and the words that we're singing together. When you hear a sermon, you take notes. Part of fears and anxieties, the opposite of fears and anxieties, since they live in the future, is you come into the present where the grace of God is fully on you. You take notes in a sermon. God gives you grace to live fully alive where you are with a mission now. So do you see, you're gradually taking a stand against fears and anxieties. Fears and anxieties, they have their reasons. They keep you from things that could be dangerous. But you will not allow them to keep you from those things that are especially good.