The Church's Purpose

In recent months I have been plagued with a very crucial question; what is the purpose of the church?  Is her purpose to build a beautiful worship/ministry center and then spend thousands of dollars and hours maintaining this building?  Or is her purpose to congregate week after week and worship God on Sundays, returning to ‘normal’ life the rest of the week?  Jesus commanded us to “Go and make disciples of all nations,” so maybe discipleship is our purpose.  Here are my thoughts. 

Firstly, the church is people not buildings.  Thus, we must decide the best way to reach out to the most people?  If the majority of our resources are directed toward the building rather than toward people, then we must ask ourselves if we are fulfilling our purpose as the church.  Secondly, worship is not something we do it is something that flows out of us as we yield our lives fully to God.  Worship is first and foremost about relationship; when we are in right relationship with God then we are worshiping Him.  1 John 4:20 reminds us that we cannot love God without loving our brothers and sisters.  Once again, it boils down to people.  If we desire to worship God then we must spend our weeks (not just our weekends) loving and serving people or we must ask ourselves if we are fulfilling our purpose as the church.  Thirdly, discipleship is important but hands-on discipleship in the world (rather than just intellectual discipleship) is the kind Jesus taught and lived out.  I think the stress of the Great Commission should be on “go” as much as it is on “make disciples.”  If we spend too much time preparing to go out into the world and not enough time actually being disciples in and to the world, then we must ask ourselves if we are fulfilling our purpose as the church.

Our challenge is this: spend some time in prayer and scripture searching out God’s purpose for the church and then spend the rest of your life seeking to be the church and to worship God and to be a disciple of Christ.