What Is the Purpose of the Church?
When I read the New Testament I see lots of descriptions of what the Church (or churches) did, but not a lot of words about what the Church is supposed to be about. The either/or question of the purpose of the Church is: Is the Church for the building up of believers or the reaching out to unbelievers? I guess the short answer is yes. I think most folks would agree that the Church should do both. It should produce better Christians and more Christians, right?
So, is the purpose of the Church to evangelize so that people can place their trust in Christ for the salvation of their souls (more Christians) and in turn become part of the evangelism process themselves while learning to sin less and less?
Can someone help me out here?
will sansbury says:
February 23rd, 2006 at 6:12 am
I remember thinking in philosophy 101 that Plato’s allegory of the cave was a sort of pre-christian illustration of what this whole thing is about. We start the journey selfishly wanting to be free, but once we’re outside seeing the light and the trees and the sky, we realize that we can’t leave others to suffer in ignorance in the cave, so we dive back in to help free some other people.
But I don’t think the two things (evangelism and edification of the body) are equal callings. I think the only calling given the church is to pronounce the coming of the kingdom and the good news… we edify each other and grow so that we can do that more effectively.
Dawson says:
February 23rd, 2006 at 6:01 pm
What is the purpose of the church? As near as I can tell, and I would like to believe: “Go therefore into all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, and lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Evangelism & Edification. Equal? Don’t know. Percentages? Not sure. Without edification, you will lack evangelism because people will not see the point of their Christian life; without evangelism you will have no need for edification because nobody will care. There seems to be churches out there that are great at evangelism but poor at edification and vice versa. It’s a hard balance to keep. You begin to edify people too much and they forget their own wretchedness and lostness without Christ. You evangelize people too much and they never grow out of infancy to the point where they can actually lead someone else to the narrow gate. But why is this so difficult?
I like the analogy of the cave; it should work that way. The problem? I think we evangelize to remove people from their “sinful” friends, family, etc. etc. instead of evangelizing them to Christ who then commands them to go right back into that “sinful” environment and pull others to the light through love and grace. We have “won” people to fundamentalism, not Christ.
jackswords says:
February 27th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
The idea that the edification of the saints is for the purpose of the more and better evangelism sounds right to me. I can’t think of another calling of the church other than making disciples of all nations.
Dawson, I agree that calling people out of their world has been a fundamental mistake of evangelism. It contributes to that Noah’s ark mentality of just trying to get as many people on the boat as possible, safe and secure away from it all.
When Will says, announce the kingdom, it sounds like more than just sending expeditions out in the world before returning safely to the ark.
myopic pilgrim » More Purpose of the Church says:
March 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
[...] I had said in the past that the Church exists for the benefit of the world. Sure, we’re proclaimers to the world about the means of salvation, but even more, we are to love and to serve them. And I’ve got it into my head that if we love and serve the world in the same kinds of ways Jesus did (ease pain, carry loads, give generously to those in need, save lives, etc.), we would draw others to join us in following Christ. So, if the Church’s job is to benefit the world, what am I doing trying to fit more audio equipment into my ministry’s budget? Posted by jackswords in mirror darkly, praxis | [...]