Purpose of Church

    I am not sure if you have noticed, but there is a problem with church. I do not mean the worship style or the service itself, but the attitude that pervades church and how we approach it. It is like for us, church is just a club that we belong to. We go to our meetings once a week, pay our dues, and get great side-benefits like education, healthcare, and, oh, eternal life on the side. Aside from possibly paying tithe and offering, and usually this happens only when we are feeling especially generous, we really have no investment in church. Ask yourself, "If I stopped going to church today, would it really drastically affect my life?" If you are honest, you will probably say no.

    Is this really what Jesus had in mind when he established the church before he left? Whether Jesus intended to start a church or a religion is debatable and also moot. He did. But did he create the church to be some sort of social club for the spiritually elite? That does not sound like the Jesus recorded in the Bible. So what did Jesus have in mind when he created "church"?

    To answer this question, my friends and I have been studying the Bible to see what the Bible says about church. I hope they do not mind me posting the some of the results of our study here. There is, of course, a balance between our studies and my own personal thoughts. The two kind of run together so, if I have twisted your words on accident, I am sorry. At any rate, the first step we decided was to discern the purpose of church, answering the why.

    "Why" is problem the most important question to ask. Once you know the motivation, the purpose behind something, the how, what, and so on fall into place fairly easily. "Why" is the starting point. So that was our task first: discovered the purpose and function of church.

    The answer to that question is found in Acts 1. Acts is the sequel to the book of Luke, both written by the doctor who accompanied Paul on his travels and it picks up right after Jesus has been raised from the dead. In this first chapter, Jesus dispenses his last minute advice to his disciples. The theme? The kingdom of Heaven, which the Bible equates with the group of believers, what has become synonymous with church. As Jesus is talking church, he gives the purpose.

    His disciples, still thinking of a temporal power, ask when Jesus is going to reestablish Israel. Jesus shrugs off the question as largely irrelevant before giving his mission statement. Jesus says that his disciples purpose is to be his "witnesses" first in Judea, then Samaria, and finally to the whole world.

    What does this mean, be my "witnesses"? In Greek, the word is martyr (basically), from which we get the word "martyr" to refer to someone who is persecuted for what they believed. The reason the word has been morphed into what it is today is because the early Christians took this concept of being Jesus' witnesses to almost to an extreme. For them, to be publically executed was the highest form of witnessing.

At any rate, a person who can attest the truth of something and testifies to that truth is a martyr or witness. A witness is there to confirm the truth of something. The concept of "witness" was central to the Hebrews. In Deuteronomy, the book of the Law, no conviction could be made without at least two witnesses (19:15-21).

    This is what church is here for; to be witnesses of Jesus. What this means is that we testify of the truth of Jesus message to the world. By our experience and our words, we confirm the reality of Jesus from our own experience. This echoes what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, where he commands his disciples to tell the world about him.

    In the Old Testament, sometimes this concept of witness took the form of a monument (example Genesis 31 and Joshua 22). The church is a monument to Jesus and what he has done. Monuments are meant to be seen, to be shown. Like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, we are his light to the world. Cities on hills cannot be hidden. Our collective purpose is to demonstrate the message of Christ to the world. Anything that does not fit that purpose is not of Christ.

    There is a secondary purpose to church: support. Jesus did not pull the wool over the eyes of his disciples; he told them exactly what they were getting into following him. Repeatedly he warned them that they were going to be hated, derided, persecuted, and probably killed for following him (Matthew 5:11,12; 10:17,18; 24:9 just to give a few examples). If left to stand alone, they would not last. Most would quit after it got hard.

    But together, they had each other to lean on. Something that the Bible preaches from beginning to end is togetherness and unity. In Ecclesiastes (the doom and gloom book) 4 it says that "two are better than one" because they can support each other when times get rough. Acts 2 paints a picture of the early Christians pooling their resources to help those that have been attacked.

    Church is not just some sort of social club for the spiritual elite. It is not some place for us to strut our stuff to each other. We, collectively, have a purpose that goes beyond just the service on Sabbath morning. Together, we are to be a witness to Jesus every moment of everyday. Church is to pervade every aspect of our lives. Secondly, we are on the same team working together for this purpose. We all have struggles that we face and as members of the church, we are to provide each other with the support we need. This is why we are here.

    Ask yourself, "What is my attitude when it comes to church?" "Why am I part of church?" "Is my church following this purpose? "Do I have this purpose?" Then do something about it.