The end goal of the church

The Gospel that Jesus brought to the world was that sinners could be saved and restored to God (Mt.1:21). After the first man sinned and turned away from God in order to satisfy his own pleasures, subsequently the whole world has suffered from the consequences of sin. Jesus came with the remedy. In order to provide us forgiveness, which was absolutely necessary for man to get back to God, Jesus paid the cost with His blood. But forgiveness could not complete the redemptive process, which then needed man to be set free from the power of sin ruling his nature, and help him to live like Jesus and be transformed to the nature of God (2Pe.1:3,4). This alone could enable him to have more and more fellowship with God.

The 'church', which is now the body through which Jesus works on the earth, is God's tool for executing this plan of salvation. It is to proclaim the Gospel, receive people into it who respond to the Gospel and then train them to grow in the likeness of Christ, till each of them attains to the maturity of Christ. "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ" (Col.1:28). This is the end goal of the commission God has given to the church (Mt.28:19,20).

This commission is not addressed to individuals to carry out but collectively to the church. So God gives us different spiritual gifts, enabling each member to carry out specific tasks as different parts of the body of Christ (Ep.4:7). God also provides leaders in the church to equip and train the members so that they can together carry out this great task with each doing their part (Ep.4:11-13). There are so many aspects to this process of growing up to the maturity of Christ, and that is why so many different types of trainers/leaders are involved.

If we don't realise that the end goal is the transformation of the individuals into becoming like Jesus in character, it is possible to get over-occupied with the smaller tasks which catch the fancy of different leaders according to their gifting. So we see churches that emphasise just one or two aspects such as Bible study, evangelism, prayer meetings, youth ministry, church planting, social work, etc. Do we see that while all these are necessary components of the work of a church, without a proper emphasis on personal growth, people are not likely to become mature? If some of these activities are flourishing, but people continue to remain more or less the same in their character and behaviour, we must see that we have lost sight of the end goal. Then individuals and families with problems remain as undercurrents while the church is known for its different activities.

Like all of us individuals, churches also need to grow in character, to be seen as the body of Christ. But the church consists of us individuals, and if it is to flourish, we must be flourishing individually! We can see, ministry goes deeper than activities.