The Purpose Of The Church: Take 2
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As I’ve been thinking about it a bit more, I realized that some of the specifics of my post on the purpose of the church might have been a bit nebulous.
I want to explain my thinking on mission, by comparing the church to driving a car. As we drive a car we check the gauges, and make sure that we are going the proper speed. We speed up and slow down, we look in our mirrors, and shift gears (if we are driving a manual). We might even pick up some friend along the way. All of this is part of driving the car, but at the same time, when I was a kid sitting in my dad’s driveway doing most of these things I wasn’t driving. So whats the difference between driving and sitting in the driveway? Well, its the journey. All of those things are part of driving but alone they are out of place.
In a spiritual sense, driving is the mission. We worship, we pray, we fellowship, we confess, we share our faith, we do all of these things, and many more. But all of these things should be done while on mission, all are things the church should do, but without the great commission we are still sitting in the driveway.
To take this idea one step further, as we drive the car we have a destination in mind, for the drive: to glorify God, but we have to remember that the destination isn’t the drive.
I hope this explains a bit more about my thinking on the issue.