What is the Purpose of the Church?

Dear Friends,

Have you thought about it? What is the purpose of the church? And has it changed?

Consider what Reggie McNeal writes in his book, The Missional Renaissance:

"The role of the church is simply this: to bless the world. In doing this, the people of God reveal God's heart for the world"

As we have asked those in our groups how people view the church today, the responses to this question have painted a mostly negative picture. The longstanding traditions of the church at large seem to make the church appear to be unadaptive. The abusive actions of church leaders in positions of power and authority have created great distrust and anger against the church. And oftentimes for good reason. So how can we, as the church change this stigma? We need to acknowledge the problems within the church and start blessing people outside the church.

This idea of blessing the world goes back long before the church existed. In Genesis 12:2-3, God told Abram, "I will bless you... and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you." As followers of Jesus, we have this same inheritance and invitation from God.

Jesus invited his disciples into this way of thinking and acting when he said, "The Son of Man did not come into this world to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).

Can we bless the world by simply loving people in tangible, practical ways? In our Beers and Bible study group we asked this question and then took it further. We began the year with a Kindness Challenge.

We want to invite you into an experiment! You can find the Kindness Challenge series of six short videos on our Instagram page. Also we've got a fun new resource we hope you'll join in along with us for the month of April. It's a month of practical ways to show kindness to others, and you can find it HERE.

Let's go out this week and bless someone with a purposeful act of kindness. Email us to let us know your experience because we want to celebrate the ways God is using all of us to bless people as His church!

Have a great week!

Todd & Meredith

PS: We believe your purpose is so closely tied to your day-in-day-out life. If you haven't listened yet, we hope you'll be encouraged by our "Finding Your Purpose" message.