Existing For What?

Yesterday, I was listening to a recording of Todd Hunter, and he said something that made me think: “the church exists for the world.” In others words, the church doesn’t exist for me, the church exists for those who do not yet know Christ. Many of us will concur and say that we know this and have known this for a very long time; it’s not anything new. Although this is not a new idea, and many people would agree with this, it is something that we always need to be reminded of. We can lose sight of this when we become so preoccupied in doing church activities, meetings and other such things. We also lose sight of this when we become needy. When we, as disciples of Christ become needy, complaining that the church isn’t throwing the activities that we like, that the church doesn’t cater to our every beck and call, we are making the church exist for us rather than for the world. We must realize that the church isn’t here to make us Christians feel better. We become vacuums that suck the life out of everything, trying to consume everything we possible can rather than give everything that we are to the mission of Christ.

Many churches will even say that “the church exists for the world”, but when I take a look at various churches - their language, their setting, etc. - tells me that they do not exist for the world, but for themselves. How can churches spend thousands of dollars on inward focused activities and spend nothing on the efforts of transforming or aiding their community in any way? I am not saying that inward focused activities are bad or wrong in any way, but if we are completely inward focused and never outward focused, the church begins to exist solely for Christians and never fulfills its potential as a movement that exists for the world.