What Is the Purpose of the Church Today?

What is the purpose of the church today?

Depending on who you ask, you may get very different answers. Some people see the church primarily as a place to worship on Sunday. Others think its job is to care for people, serve the community, evangelize the lost, teach the Bible, or provide programs for families and children.

All of those things can be part of what a church does, but there’s a more important question:

What did Jesus create His church to accomplish?

The church doesn’t belong to us. We didn’t create it, and we don’t get to decide its purpose based on what is popular, what attracts the biggest crowd, or what seems most relevant to the culture.

The church doesn’t get to invent its mission. Jesus already gave us one.

Jesus Gave the Church Its Mission

Before Jesus returned to the Father, He gave His followers what we commonly call the Great Commission:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” — Matthew 28:19–20

We often focus on the word go, and taking the gospel to people is certainly part of the command. However, the heart of the Great Commission is making disciples.

Jesus didn’t tell His followers to build impressive buildings, create successful organizations, develop great programs, or fill auditoriums. None of those things are necessarily wrong. They can all be useful tools for ministry.

But they’re tools.

Making disciples is the mission.

A disciple follows Christ, learns from Him, increasingly becomes like Him, and eventually helps someone else do the same. Everything the church does should ultimately contribute to helping people know Christ, follow Christ, become more like Christ, and help others follow Christ.

The Church Teaches God’s Word

When the church began in Acts, one of its defining characteristics was its commitment to truth:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” — Acts 2:42

The early church needed to know what God had said, and nothing has changed. Christians today still need to know what God has said.

Ephesians 4 explains that Christ gave pastors and teachers to equip believers and build up the body. Their teaching should help Christians mature until they increasingly reflect Christ.

That means biblical teaching isn’t primarily about collecting information. I can know who wrote Romans, explain biblical doctrines, and quote twenty Bible verses while still failing to live like Jesus.

The purpose of teaching Scripture is transformation.

Through His Word, God reveals who He is, who we are, what He has done, what He values, and how He calls us to live. As those truths reshape the way we think, they should also change the way we live.

The Church Must Teach Christians How to Think Biblically

Teaching Scripture also means the church cannot be silent when biblical truth collides with the culture around us.

Culture is constantly teaching.

Turn on the television, scroll through social media, watch a movie, listen to politicians, sit in a classroom, or simply pay attention to advertising. Every day we’re being told what to believe about truth, marriage, sexuality, money, success, justice, government, family, identity, morality, and what makes a good life.

If the church refuses to address those subjects because they’re considered controversial or political, the culture won’t stop talking about them.

It simply means the culture gets to teach Christians what to think about them.

The church’s responsibility isn’t to become an arm of a political party or tell Christians to adopt whatever position is popular on the left or the right. Its responsibility is to ask a much more fundamental question:

What has God said?

When Scripture speaks clearly, the church should speak clearly. When Scripture gives principles rather than directly addressing a modern situation, Christians need to be taught how to apply those principles faithfully.

Romans 12:2 tells us:

“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

If Christians aren’t learning to think biblically, they will eventually think like the world around them. Part of the purpose of the church today is to equip Christians to examine everything happening around them through the truth of God’s Word.

The Church Makes Disciples, Not Just Attendees

Church attendance matters. As we discussed in the previous article, Scripture tells Christians not to neglect gathering together. However, getting people into the building isn’t the finish line.

The goal of the church isn’t attendance. The goal is transformation.

Someone could attend church faithfully for forty years, hear hundreds of sermons, sit through countless Bible studies, and know exactly when to stand up and sit down. Yet if that person still doesn’t understand God’s Word, can’t explain why he believes what he believes, and has never helped another Christian grow, something is wrong.

The church should help people move from hearing biblical truth to understanding it, living it, and eventually helping someone else do the same.

That’s discipleship.

It also connects to something I’ve increasingly been thinking about in my own walk with God. Bible reading, prayer, worship, fellowship, and learning Scripture aren’t simply religious activities we’re supposed to perform. God uses them to help us know Him more deeply.

We aren’t merely trying to know more about God. We are learning to know God.

As that relationship grows, we should increasingly think like Christ and live like Christ.

The Church Is a Community, Not an Audience

Acts 2 gives us a picture of Christians who learned, prayed, ate, worshiped, gave, and shared life together. They weren’t simply an audience watching something happen on a platform.

An audience arrives, watches, and leaves.

A community participates.

As we saw in the previous article, the New Testament repeatedly commands Christians to love, encourage, forgive, serve, pray for, and carry the burdens of one another. Those commands require relationships.

A healthy church therefore needs more than people sitting in the same room for an hour each week. It should provide opportunities for Christians to develop the relationships necessary to actually live out those commands.

The Church Takes the Gospel Outside Its Walls

Jesus told His followers in Acts 1:8:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The gospel was never supposed to remain inside a church building.

Christians gather to worship, learn, encourage one another, and become equipped. Then we scatter back into the places God has already put us: our homes, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

The church gathers so Christians can be equipped, and Christians scatter so they can represent Christ wherever God has placed them.

That connects directly to everything we’ve been discussing throughout the Start at Home series. If we want our families, communities, and eventually our society to change, it won’t happen merely because Christians spend another hour inside a church building.

Change happens when Christians leave that building prepared to live differently because they follow Jesus.

Methods Can Change. The Mission Can’t.

Churches don’t all have to look the same.

Sunday School, small groups, Wednesday services, children’s ministries, youth groups, Bible studies, livestreams, podcasts, Vacation Bible School, and other programs are methods. They can be valuable, and they can change as circumstances change.

Methods can change. The mission can’t.

Sometimes we become more committed to the way we’ve always done something than to the reason we started doing it. Instead of simply asking, “Have we always had this program?” a church should also ask:

“Is this helping us accomplish the mission Jesus gave us?”

Church programs should also support the responsibilities God has given Christians rather than encourage us to outsource them. Children’s ministries and Sunday School teachers, for example, can be tremendous partners for parents teaching their children about God. However, Scripture gives the primary responsibility for spiritual instruction in the home to the family. An hour at church was never intended to replace what should be happening throughout the week at home.

We’ll return to that larger issue in the next article because it applies to much more than parenting.

How Should We Measure a Healthy Church?

This leaves us with an uncomfortable question.

How do we determine whether a church is succeeding?

Attendance, baptisms, budgets, buildings, programs, and social media followers are easy to count. Those numbers can tell us useful things, but they don’t tell us everything.

Perhaps we should also ask whether people are learning God’s Word and thinking biblically about the world around them. Are Christians growing in their relationship with God and becoming more like Christ? Are they serving one another, sharing the gospel, discipling their children, and helping other believers grow?

Those things are harder to put on a spreadsheet, but they’re much closer to the mission Jesus gave us.

A church with a thousand spectators isn’t necessarily healthier than a church with a hundred disciples who are growing, serving, sharing the gospel, teaching their children, loving their neighbors, and helping other Christians mature.

The question isn’t simply how many people showed up?

The better question is:

What is happening in the lives of the people who did?

The Church Has a Mission

So, what is the purpose of the church today?

Jesus gave us the mission: make disciples.

The church proclaims the gospel, teaches God’s Word, equips Christians to think biblically, provides a community where believers grow together, and prepares them to represent Christ outside its walls.

Buildings, programs, and technology can help accomplish that mission, but they aren’t the mission.

There’s one more thing we need to recognize.

It’s easy to read this and think, “Yes, that’s what my church should be doing.”

The pastor should teach. The Sunday School teachers should disciple people. The church leaders should reach the community. The children’s workers should teach the kids. Somebody should visit the sick, encourage the discouraged, serve people in need, and share the gospel.

But there’s a problem with that way of thinking.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you aren’t merely someone who attends the church. You’re part of the church.

So the next question isn’t simply what the church is supposed to do.

It’s:

What are you supposed to do?

Continue the Start at Home Series

This article is part of the Start at Home series, where we’re looking at God’s blueprint for our homes, our churches, our communities, and ultimately our nation.

If you’ve missed any of the previous articles, or you want to follow the series from the beginning, you can find them all here:

Start at Home Series
https://www.discipleblueprint.com/startathome

Take the Conversation Further on the Podcast

The Disciple Blueprint Podcast takes the ideas from the Start at Home series further with additional teaching, examples, and practical application to help you follow Christ in everyday life.

You can listen on most major podcast platforms or directly on our website:

Disciple Blueprint Podcast
https://www.discipleblueprint.com/podcast

Don’t Miss What’s Next

In the next article, we’re going to make this personal. It’s easy to talk about what the pastor, teachers, leaders, and church should be doing. But if you’re part of the body of Christ, you have a job too.

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