What is the church? It might not be what you think it is…
God has me on quite an adventure at the moment and I’m learning to look at my faith in a whole new way. I’m looking at it with fresh eyes and asking why I believe what I believe and why I do the things I do as a follower of God. One of the questions that I have been asking myself over the past couple of years, and never quite finding an answer that resonated, is this: What is church supposed to be? What’s it for?
Listening to Craig Groeschel preach the other weekend at LifeChurch.tv I heard the best explanation of what a church is and what its purpose is. It’s a neat little package that beautifully encapsulates the essence of what is a complex, organic beast.
- The Church is a community of believers.
- The Church exists for the benefit of those not in the community of believers. Church is not about my needs or wants as a believer. It’s purpose is to meet the needs of those who are not yet a part of the community and to demonstrate God’s grace, acceptance and love to the world.
- The Church has a message that never changes, but understands that the method must change if it is going to fulfil its purpose. Craig says: “If we are going to reach people no-one is reaching you have to do something no-one else is doing.”
I don’t know about you, but the realisation that the church is not there to meet my needs was a bit of a sucker punch! It has always been in my head that church is the domain of Christians, where they meet, where they get taught etc. And while that’s true to a degree, because that’s where a very small portion of the community of believers takes place, it’s not the purpose of the church to look after believers! That’s a big shift in thinking, and that, of course, is beginning to change my expectations of how I participate and how the church functions. It also raises a bunch of questions about what the community of believers looks like in practice since that appears to be where believers are to look after each other…but that’s another post. 
How about you…do you agree with this summary of the Church and it’s purpose?
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August 19th, 2009 at 9:33 am
I disagree with this conclusion.
I believe the church is inclusive. It does not exist for one group (ie nonbelievers) at the expense of the other (ie believers). But church begins at home and then reaches out from there. The home needs to be strong to have effect in the outside world.
Using Acts as a model, the church was set up as a community of believers which gathered together to meet the needs of each other. This example of brotherly love and care was to be the way in which the community saw God in action. A church that cannot care for its OWN has no business reaching out to the wider community. It is hypocritical.
Or we can look at it with the model of the family unit. The primary purpose of the family is to care for and nourish its members. Out from that comes the ability to reach into the community and offer strength and support to others.
I agree that the church has an evangelistic and social purpose, but not at the expense of caring for its own.
However, in recent times it seems that caring for its own has become more am more “entertain” its own. This is not the purpose of the church. Nowhere does it say, that I am aware, that the church is to amuse us. That worship should be like a mini concert, or variety show, or that a service should be anything other than a time of instruction, reflection/repentence, worship and fellowship.
IMO, somewhere in the past few decades the church went off the rails. It became too self concious. It became more interested in how the “world” perceived it. Became more interested in looking “relevant” or “interesting” or “cool” to the non beleivers and began to forget that its strength is in building men and women of GOD. It is through that commitment to DISCIPLESHIP and FELLOWSHIP that the community is reached with the life of the GOSPEL.
Feed the people, teach them how to find more food, then send them out to feed others.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Lori, I have to agree with you, especially where you say that if we don’t care for our own how can we care for others. Again, looking at the Acts model and Stephen. He was ministering to the believers – widows etc, – and it was through this that he ‘provoked’ the Jews and was persecuted and martyred. In John 17 Jesus says that the world will know that God is God when there is unity among His people. How can there be unity if all are ‘out there’? We do need to get together and encourage one another and worship together to be re-vitalised to go out and share the good news.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hey all,
I have to say I agree with Lori also! I have grappled with this question for years and tried to explain the church’s existence to non-believers and justify reasons for ministry involvement. I think that the ‘church service’ as we know it exists to benefit believers as a time of community worship, teaching and fellowship. It is certainly not a comfortable place for non-believers to be who don’t understand what’s going on. However the ‘church’ as a wider body exists to preach the good news and it is our day-to-day living that expresses that. However, it is way too uncomfortable for most of us to accept that we have all been given the great commission and we like to leave it to those who are ‘gifted’ in evangelism. My current journey has challenged me to invite God along with me everywhere, in everything I do and in every conversation I have. To live a life that glorifies Him first. That’s an interesting challenge.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Lori you have a point about the church needing to look after its own, and I would say that doing so is training for reaching out to those not yet saved… there is no point reaching out if you are not looking after those you have… my point would be that the way we ‘look after ourselves’ has strayed from the biblical definition of it. We are to meet each others needs, care for one another, teach, disciple and reach out… now I would say that all of those applies to both those inside and outside the church.
I don’t think we can keep looking back to the Acts church model and saying “if only we were like them” because time has moved on, centuries of Christian ‘tradition’ both good and bad, has shaped how the church looks today and has shaped the expectations of those within and outside the Church as to how the Church is supposed to behave and look. We can’t undo the years of tradition easily and frankly some of it we shouldn’t undo because it has brought us to where we are today… We need to look at the root essence of what Church (by this I mean the fellowship of believers not necessarily the institution we call ‘church’ today) was created for by God, what was and is its purpose, what does God want to achieve through it? To me I look to the three statements from Jesus.
1. Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength (Matt 22:37)
2.Love your neighbour as you love yourself (Matt 22:39)
3.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matt 28:19.20)
These three statements for me sum up the purpose of the Christian life and the purpose of the Church. It contains the commands to teach, worship, disciple, care, meet needs, act justly, reach out, evangelise, meet together, fellowship etc. This is what the Church should be doing at its core and what it should be seen by others to be doing. This covers looking after those within and those outside the church, it’s all inclusive. How we do those things is up to each individual believer and church group. They should be proactive in identifying and meeting the needs of their community. Whatever they do it must be balanced. Too much focus on those within leads to an entertain mentality where we are only concerned with keeping those we have happy. Too much focus on those outside endangers us of being hypocritical when we don’t take care of those within yet profess to want to take care of those outside.
The church is to be an extension of the individual believers life, after all isn’t it in essence a collection of individual followers of God coming together to be more like Christ together? So to say that it only exists for those outside the community of believers is a bit simplistic, because it does exist for both. The problem we have with today’s churches is that they are far to focused on taking care of the community of believers that they have lost their balance. That is why so many people are questioning what the Church is for because they cannot see the balance in today’s Church that they see when they read their Bible.
But having said that isn’t the ultimate goal of Christianity to have God worshipped and make Him known? Isn’t God’s heart to see that all come to know Him and that none perish for eternity? (John 3:16-17) Isn’t the whole purpose of our lives to worship God in all we do, to share the Gospel and make disciples? If that is the case (and I believe it to be so) then in its simplistic form it seems correct to say that the church exists for the benefit of those not in the community of believers. When we look after our own, when we teach our own, disciple our own, encourage, equip, and send out our own aren’t we ultimately doing so in order to worship God by sharing Him with others? All the worship, all the praise, giving, serving, caring, loving, isn’t it all so that God’s name may be lifted high?
And isn’t God’s name lifted highest when a sinner comes to faith? That’s the only time I can recall when all of Heaven shouts for joy, they don’t sing and shout when we have a great worship experience, or deliver a strong theological sermon, or help a person in need… they rejoice when a soul is saved! (see Luke 15:8-10) Therefore shouldn’t everything we do, say and speak be in light of making Christ known to all people, whether that be to those already believers or those yet to believe?
So for me, the purpose of the church is to
1.Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength (Matt 22:37)
2.Love your neighbour as you love yourself (Matt 22:39)
3.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matt 28:19.20)
And it must balance all three all the time. It’s a tough task and I think that a major rethink of how and why we do church is needed if we are to truly be effective in following God’s commands and reaching this world for Him. We need to remember that we do not exist solely for ourselves, in fact we no longer live for ourselves, we have been bought and paid for by Jesus’ very life given for us… therefore we live to serve God and to serve God we need to follow His commands; Love God, Love others, Go make disciples…
.-= Andrew´s last blog ..The Church of Tomorrow =-.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Wow there are some great comments there. I can’t really give an opinion because I haven’t been involved in a church for some years now. But I will say that over those years when I have been looking for a church to get involved with one of the things I look at is how “genuine” is it. That covers a few things such as; is the message being delivered genuine (truly Gods word), are the people genuine (living a Christian life all the time) and is the friendship they extend genuine. I have been into many churches like the ones Lori spoke of where I felt that there was way too much entertaining and not enough substance to any of it. I call these churches “feelgood churches”. They are trying to be too “cool” without really feeding the congregation. In a world where everything is so fast moving I think people are looking for something solid and real. But on the other hand maybe younger people need to be entertained. (I am not that old really).
Recently I went to a funeral at an Anglican Church. I felt the minister delivered a great message but all those around me complained about how old fashioned he was and that it was even more boring than going to a funeral in a Catholic Church with full mass. I was a little shocked because I have been to many of them and knew what I would rather.
So I guess we are all different and have different needs when it comes to church.
As Christians there will be times when we need the church for different things, learning, refuge, support, care, love and much more. The church needs to be all of these things to everyone that walks through the door because when outsiders are welcomed in they need to see that all of this is available to them.
If a church in a community has this then I believe it will naturally be ministering not just to its members but through its members to those outside.
I liked how Andrew put it in his 3 points and also his post on “The Church of Tomorrow”.
All very thought provoking but I am not sure if there is one right answer that fits everyone.
August 19th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Do you think that the early church would have had the phenomenal growth it did (Acts 2:42) if they thought their purpose was just to look after one another? And why did God gift them with the ability to talk in languages other than their own if not to reach those outside their community.
I’m beginning to see a disconnect in your answers between what we think the community of believers looks like and how it actually functions and where it takes place…
August 19th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I love your questions Michelle. It is good to be asking these questions. The church IS the community of believers. It is what we are called to do as believers that is what the church DOES. There are lots of things we can find in the bible about what we are called to do as believers.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:08 am
The problem is that I don’t believe that ‘church’ models any Grace or acceptance. It’s a community of people that talk about grace, forgiveness and acceptance but sure don’t live it.
What exactly do you think you do so differently to others? If what you talk about is true then why isn’t it visible/tangible in your lives?
There is no difference between the church and a hobby group – maybe one difference – the hobby group actually practices what they learn.
The church is sectarian. The church is exclusive not inclusive. The church talks about being accepting but spend all their days learning and arguing why their sects interpretation is right and everybody elses is wrong.
Thechurch is mindlessly religious. It talks of grace through faith, but spend time in the community and you’ll see that it displays grace by works and striving.
The church is hierarchical. It again excludes people by who is seemingly more important. Everything is based on being recognised.
The church is judgmental and false. They point the finger at people who stumble but do the same things in secret.
The church is about wearing masks. You can’t afford to reallybe honest with where you are at, especially if you are in leadership. If you were and the church found out, you’d be stepped down and judged. So it’s better to pretend to be holy and together, rather than actually model how grace works in the life of a sinner. The whole structure perpetuates false living as a result.
You wonder why after 30+ years I no longer go.
Hulk
August 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am
Hulk, thank you for your open and honest comment. I understand exactly what you’re saying and I too have experienced what you have. I need to remind myself that God is different, that God wants to know me, personally, and for me to know Him.
Yes the church is supposed to be a good representation of what it means to know God, and yes it gets its wrong, a lot. That is why we are asking these questions becasue some of us realise that we need to change. We need to look at why we do what we do and align ourselves to better represent God, as we claim that is what we do.
Hulk, there are those of us out there who are part of churches that know change is needed. We dont want to be hypocritical, all we want to do is example what living in community with God is really like.
I’d love to chat more with you about church and God and life and everything else. Change is needed and we need people who are willing to tell it like it is and offer ideas for the way forward.
Hope to hear from you (and anyone else wanting to discuss such things) soon.
.-= Andrew´s last blog ..The Church of Tomorrow =-.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:25 am
Hi Hulk! Thanks for stopping by, and for sharing your thoughts about the church. Your words resonate with me. They are so familiar and have expereinced the same in my own life, just as Andrew has. I have seen dozens of people leave churches for this reason. I have seen the people I love the most marginalised by churches because they rocked the boat. If you have read any of my adventure posts you will know that i am totally over that kind of church and I don’t want to be a part of it any longer. I believe we are called to much much more.
As a representative of the most high God I want to apologise that you have been treated this way by the people of God. It is not right. He loves you so much. Please don’t judge Him on how the church has treated you.
I know I’ve treated people poorly in the past in the name of the church, and right here and now I confess that and I repent. I seek forgiveness.
I am learning what it means to extend this kind of grace giving aceptance through my journey. Please stick around.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
In a very small way I understand the relating to God part, not well, but I think I kind of get it. The church experience has TOTALLY crushed me. I can’t see any difference between church goers and the Pharisees. It is the same thing, the same religious mindset. The difference is that modern day Pharisees litter their religious talk with words like ‘grace’, ‘forgiveness’ and Jesus. Experientially there is no difference.
I too have been a Pharisee and I am ashamed of how I was. I would love to mix with people whose lives are a true reflection of Christ, but I don’t know any.
I want to connect to God, but I’m not sure how anymore. My experience in church has totally confused me. I get the teaching, I get the doctrines and yet they’re nothing more than religious musings. In that way I don’t get it. Christianity has become an intellectual exercise, a massive debate. I’m not interested in sermons, I am worn to the bone with religion. I need connection, but there is none. I am a thirsty man in a desert, but there is no water.
I know that God loves me, but that is all that I know.
August 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
@ Hulk…I know a couple of people who would love to connect on a personal level …if you’re interested, would you drop me an email via the Contact page? None of us are perfect, but I too am tired of the intellectualisation of what is at it’s very foundation, a relationship thing. And I am committed to working this through. Would you come along for the adventure?
One of my aims when I started this blog was to create a community where like minded people could come and share openly about this stuff. It takes guts to come out and say what you have today. We’re here to support you in whatever you need…and speaking for myself…I am open to you telling it like it is if you see me not living up to God’s standard.
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August 21st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I think the church is a mix of pickers (midwives) and packers (nurturers) who need each other. We don’t all have the same gifting although we all can have opportunities to reach out to those outside the church there are those uniquely gifted to do so and usually there are relatively few midwives in a body whereas there are way more nurturers. If we do not have those who nurture we would have a lot of spiritual babies who never mature and it is obvious of course why we need the midwives. I know several occasions where tongues was used to reach the lost but mostly it is a private prayer language or uttered in the church with interpretation. Personally I have had the opportunity to bring a few to Christ but it is not my gifting, I am a teacher with a gift of encouragement and prophecy and I am most comfortable in a nurturing role. We must not avoid an opportunity to be either picker or packer but we are best at what we are gifted to do and we should learn to do it to the best of our ability.
.-= Berni´s last blog .. =-.
August 21st, 2009 at 1:27 pm
hi Bernie,
i agree absolutely that there are many diverse functions within the community of believers that make it work and that facilitate a healthy, growing organism..but at the very core of WHY you are doing these things in churches is what I am driving at. We are doing these things so that we can go out there and “benefit” the world with the love of God, provide a space for the Holy Spirit to do his thing, and for us to create an environment where they are able to come and be grown themselves. We aren’t doing them to cultivate a garden of beautiful fragrant Christians that aren’t fulfilling God’s command to love the world and to tell the world about God. That is our very reason for being!
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August 21st, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I think that the church is first to look out for itself but others should also be high on its agenda.
I think Hulk has many criticisms that are only too often true. Indeed this is why many peolpe leave the church and it is why the church is decreasing in the weston world where the traditions and hypocrisies are so thick in the church, that even genuine Christians find it hard to break free.
I woudl recommend to you all the following books:
Pagan Christianity -about why what we do for “church” has more to do with pagan (or secular) tradition then we might think. I’m not 100& sold on his solution to this but that is only hinted at in this book.
Quitting Church (Duin Julia) -Why people find the church useless
and perhaps most The Shaping Of Things To Come, The Frost Michael, Hirsch Alan
More constructive thoughts on how the church needs to change.
I think they provide a good starting point to the topic.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Hi Stirling. I think the community aspect of church is there to look after each other, but the underlying purpose is still to live out God’s commands (we can’t do that unless we are a helathy community).
I have read Pagan Christianity and found it very helpful. I’m not sure about his conclusions either, I’m interested to read the sequel – Church Reloaded. I also have Why people love Jesus but hate the church, and Permission to do church differently in the 21st Century on my desk at the moment.
It is indeed difficult to break free of tradition, or even to identify what is tradition and what is actual biblical truth. It’s an exciting adventure that is bringing much fruit.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I have been looking at Acts 2 and 3. In Acts 2 we saw the Holy Spirit birthing a worshiping community, that we call the Church.
A group of people who were enthusiastic in their love for God, compassionate with one another,
generous in their giving, continually studying God’s word, having communion, praising the Lord,
worshipping together, caring for one another’s needs.
But in Acts 3 God began to nudge the church out of its meeting place and out into the place of human need, because the Holy Spirit recognises, that believers are tempted to linger in “chapter 2″.
By that I mean: We want to linger inside the faith community. Were we enjoy worship. Were we enjoy fellowship. Were we enjoy teaching and instruction. Were we are with people who share our faith, values, ideas. And at one level that’s needed because in that place, we are encouraged, we feel secure, we are sharpened, we are affirmed, we feel safe.
Yes the Holy Spirit calls us to regular “chapter 2” experiences. And we are told not to forsake your assembling together and especially as you draw close to the coming of Christ.
It is vital that we assemble together.
The church is not a “stand-alone” faith, it is a “stand with and together” community.
So it is vital that we have regular “chapter 2” experiences.
Without these times together, without “chapter 2” experiences: we can lose our direction, lose our discernment, lose our motivation and lose our maturity.
However, if we camp out exclusively in chapter 2,
we forfeit equally important things.
1. We begin to loose our humility, our compassion, our influence,
2. And we begin to forfeit the mission of Christ.
We run the risk of becoming essentially an irrelevant sub-culture.
A group of people who have their own language, music, and so on, but have no, or very little, impact on the world outside their doors.
If we linger too long in chapter 2, we run the risk of just becoming another flavor of the Amish. Good folks, but no impact on the community around them.
So God who is holy, right from the very early days, calls us to be complete, and that involves being a part of his community and being a part of his mission, at the same time.
God calls us to stand with, one foot in chapter 2, and one foot in chapter 3,
Because then, and only then, are we becoming complete and mature as God’s people.
One foot in chapter 2.
One foot in chapter 3.
I have been moving in this direction for a few years. But it takes time to help people see and recapture known truths that seem to have been lost.
God is for me and his Church, and I am for him and his Church, and for his local church (an assembly of local believers), I have found it to be a place of challenge and great joy and great opportunity and growth.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Ken, good luck with all that.
Noble thoughts that get lost in a lot of religious ideas. I don’t want to discourage you in your belief, but I have heard that kind of stuff all my life.
The church is an irrelevant sub-culture. Here’s the problem. Humanity is made of finite creatures who have an in-built bias to draw towards those who think like them.
God is infinite, but as humans we need to somehow define him for our own understanding. So we create doctrines and dogma that clearly states ‘our revelation’. We then talk about how we believe God is and then draw people who think the same as us around.
Then we start using our finite ideas of who God is to ostracise others who think differently – because ‘unlike everybody else, we actually are right’. It makes a mockery of the concept of the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth. The amount of denominations testify to the fact that there is a lot that is not very clear and that experientially we do not experience what we claim is the truth!
That thinking is so human, but it is exactly why everybody falls out of touch with reality. It’s because ‘the church’ surrounds itself in religious (ideas) walls, music practice, prayer meetings, bible studies, multiple meetings…it goes on and on.
You get a group of people that then try to push on others their lifeless way of existence not realising that everyone outside of your group can see just how barren your belief system is.
When you think about it, how is your religious group different to any other group out there?
How are you different to a book club? You have a group of people with similar interests talking about what they’ve read. So what!
People hate change, that’s why they establish ‘denominations’ (religious walls). It creates a community of people that can argue why they shouldn’t change; and they use ‘scripture’ to justify the block in their religious ‘S’ bend.
It’s tiring.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
I like the concept of house churches rather than a denominational church or a building that takes a lot of money to run rather than help those around them. In house church people are there because they really want to be there and are more likely to reach out to their neighbours and look after each others needs which is how the church in the New Testament grew when they saw how the Christians showed loved to one another. Unfortunately we Christians aren’t always so beautiful and fragrant but if we can be real so that non-Christians can relate to us and be drawn to Christ we have been effective. I find many Christians not really my cup of tea I would rather hang out with non-Christians a lot of the time.
.-= Berni´s last blog ..Grains can safely be eliminated from your diet =-.