What is the goal of the church?

Bob Whitesel Nov. 14, 2016

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I often ask my client churches to honestly tell me what they perceive as their church's primary goal. This is not a scientific poll because these churches need to grow and they realize this (or they wouldn't be hiring a church growth consultant). But their answers may mirror yours. Look at their responses in Figure 5.1.

As you can see from Figure 5.1 the common answer is "our primary goal is to survive as a church." This desire to survive is laudable, and such honesty is encouraging. Yet, with survival as a primary goal a church usually won't continue to exist much longer. This cure for the common church is much bigger, for it is a church-wide refocus back to Jesus' goal for his church.

Jesus' goal for the Church

The right answer for Figure 5.1 is actually "none of the above" and comes from Jesus' own words. That's right, the primary goal of every church is not to influence the community for the better, provide a warm place of fellowship, sponsor excellent teaching, or even to survive. The church of God has a higher, more encompassing call (that, by the way, includes the previous three tasks). To understand this, let's look at Jesus' last and most poignant instructions to his followers.

What makes this a Great Commission?

The Great Commission is the label that has been given to these final and central instructions Jesus gave his followers in Matthew 28:18–20. In this paragraph, Jesus literally commissioned or recruited all followers down through the ages into his mission. This commissioning is akin to an official directive, a direct order, and a command, such as a military conscript might receive upon entering service. In fact, military personnel reading this will no doubt remember their own commissioning into the armed forces. Veterans have told me this was a powerful and moving experience, with one veteran stating, "You weren't supposed to have tears in your eyes when you were commissioned, but I did. After 9/11 it was clear to me that I was no longer talking about serving my country. I was doing it! I was ready to put my life on the line for my country."

Christians too are called to put their lives on the line in Jesus' great commissioning.

What do disciples look like?

As a young junior high student, I heard a pastor say we are to "make disciples." Being an inattentive youth, I never quite grasped a correct image of what this looked like. From my rudimentary knowledge of the Bible, I pictured Jesus' disciples and figured the church should make more longhaired individuals with beards, robes, and sandals. Because the only image I could conjure up were the hippies of the era, I wondered in my naïveté, "Was the preacher really telling us to go out and produce more hippies?" Obviously this is not what the preacher intended. But the word disciple had become so archaic and disconnected that a modern depiction was needed.

Picturing a disciple

To picture a disciple we begin with the Greek word matheteusate,which means "a learner, a pupil or an apprentice." Rather than an expert, it carries the image of a trainee or a student. Christ is commanding his followers not to produce experts, but rather to foster a community of authentic learners. Following Jesus should feel like you are enrolled in his school of learning. Therefore, a church is not a cadre of experts, but a college of fellow learners.

Theologians have sought to convey the rich and multifaceted meaning of the verb "to make disciples" in several ways:

• Donald McGavran: "It means enroll in my (Jesus') school."

• Eddie Gibbs: "It is learning, not simply through being given information, but in learning how to use it. Discipleship is an apprenticeship rather than an academic way of learning. It is learning by doing."

• James Engel: "In short, discipleship requires continued obedience over time . . . Thus becoming a disciple is a process beginning when one received Christ, continuing over a lifetime as one is conformed to His image (Phil. 1:6), and culminating in the glory at the end of the age."

An up-to-date image of a disciple

From a closer look at the words Jesus used, we see that the goal of every church is to help people become "a community of active, ongoing learners." It is not just to baptize or teach as we are going out (though all of these are hows of the disciple making process). The goal, toward which a church should focus its attention and its resources, is to produce people who are actively learning about their heavenly Father.

Still, this goal includes binding up their wounds, meeting their needs before they even know who Christ is, standing up for justice, and righting wrongs. But all of these worthy actions, if they become the goal, will misguide your mission. God's goal, the purpose he has for every church, is to reconnect his wayward offspring to himself (the essence of the missio Dei). And the church's goal (Figure 5.6) is to foster this reunification by helping people become learners about a loving, seeking Father.

The goal of the church defined

While the common church has mistaken many hows for the goal, Figure 5.6 is the goal against which the uncommon church will be measured. In our commissioning, Jesus has handed us a different measuring stick.

Jesus wants the uncommon church to focus on reuniting his wayward offspring with him by making active, ongoing learners about his great

love, sacrifice, and future for them. And so, be careful not to make some of the following common missteps.

• Teaching Without Learning. If a church is teaching many people, but few are actively learning over a long period of time, the church is not making active, ongoing learners.

• Having Learned Once, but Not Learning Now. If a church has many people who have learned in the past but are not learning now, then the church is not making active, ongoing learners.

• Baptizing Without Ongoing Learning. If the church is baptizing many souls, but there is little ongoing education about what it means to follow Christ, then that church is not making active, ongoing learners.

Excerpted from Cure For The Common Church: God's Plan to Restore Church Health,by Bob Whitesel (Wesleyan Publishing House, 2012).

For further online notes: See Chapter 4 Complete Notes.

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Bob Whitesel (D.Min., Ph.D.) is a foresight coach, professor, and award-winning author of 14 books. For over 30 years, he has guided leaders and churches to pivot and engage what’s next. He holds two earned doctorates from Fuller Theological Seminary and teaches on leadership foresight, church health, and organizational change. His website is www.ChurchForesight.com. Learn More »

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