These are my sentiments as well.
It makes me feel good.
I go to church for a variety of reasons. As a Christian, I follow the admonition to regularly gather with other Christians for the sake of worship and community. At church, I am part of corporate worship through song and biblical instruction. My church also functions as a community. My church is my second family in many ways; we celebrate life together (birthdays, holidays, achievements like graduation), we support each other when facing the hard aspects of life (death, loss, etc.), and we even share aspects of our mundane, daily lives (shopping, going out, babysitting, etc.).
I go from habit. As in, its Sunday morning - time to head to church!
I enjoy going because on any given week I get something:
A challenge to be better
A reminder that there is more to this world
A bit of quiet reflection
A feeling of God’s presence in my life
A meeting with friends
Donuts and coffee
Interesting classes in adult Sunday School
Another place for my sons to socialize
My faith goes in waves, but I believe in a higher power. If I stopped attending services during a lull, it would be harder to get going. Sometimes attendance is like exercise - I WANT to sleep in, and I might even feel better that day. But over time my inner self will be as fat and slovenly as my outer self.
My congregation is active in social justice, and leans very Left. I enjoy that, though I am a bit different in my political outlook. It helps open my eyes to other perspectives.
I consider churches to be part of the bedrock of America, providing a strong centering to our community. Church helps keep us out of that “bowling alone” mental state that has hit our nation due to more mobility and loss of community.
That and at times I truly feel God’s presence.
Along the lines of some of what** Friar Ted **wrote, I went though a long period of, “If God is everywhere, and loves us all I can sleep in on Sundays.”
It started to feel selfish after a while. Two citations really shaped my thinking on this. First, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matt 6:6 KJV) It doesn’t say to stay in the closet, in fact you have to come out into the open to receive the reward.
And also, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” (Matt 10:8 KJV)
As an active member of a church I have chances to do things in the community I wouldn’t be able to do as an individual. I haven’t personally cleansed any lepers, but have done volunteer work in homeless shelters and the local jails in this and the last community I lived in. Sure, I could do that on my own, but I doubt I’d go through the hoops (more hoops for jails than shelters).
And I do like the music and fellowship aspects, as well. We get to know eachother’s families. We share triumphs and also rough times. We pray for and with eachother. I’d feel lonely without it.