The title’s question usually wants us to check with someone or start searching for the location of a physical church with the help of an address or GPS. This supposes the notion that church is usually looked upon as a structure or a denomination. It has usually been reduced to an institutional entity as it is an immovable asset and a sacred institution as a place of worship. Jesus meant the Church to be the people and the force. Where are the people and where is the force? We are mere Christians ignoring our primary responsibility. Yes, “Christians” a name used only three times in the Bible when compared to the word “Church” used 114 times and “disciples” used over 250 times.
We tend to evade our primary responsibility by passing off just as Christians. All we need to do is visit the Church on Sundays. When being a disciple and a Church, the two responsibilities entrusted by Christ Jesus, we are first to fill our personal space by finding people to share the gospel and then fill the Church facility. The person who has been brought into the knowledge of Jesus becomes His disciple and a disciple maker as commanded by Jesus while deliberating the Great Commission.
With this crucial requirement being ignored pastors and leaders end up being busy managing the church to keep it afloat and grossly falter in their duty of equipping the congregation in Christ’s mission and release them into the community. Stanley E Jones remarked, "Sitting in a church does not make a person a Christian any more than sitting in a hen house makes a person a hen.". Do not forget what the word Christian carries as referred to the people in Antioch, "... The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.". Acts 11:26 CSB. It is an actionable word, not just an identity.
William McKnight, Former CEO of 3M states this when referring to how organisational leaders are managing their employees, "If you put fences around people, you get sheep." And this is also true with Church Congregation who are protected and fenced all their lives. Mr. Grey keeps talking about Churches and comments, “they are so much stuck with programs that they have almost lost focus on the true mission Christ entrusted to us.”.
The Churches are rather focused internally with life enrichment and spiritual upliftment programs than holding its members responsible for the perishing souls. This isn’t just a problem for “traditional” churches—this is an issue for every church that has existed for ten years or more. People inside the church are high priority than reaching those outside. It’s completely understandable: Insiders pay the bills. In the fear of making them unhappy and losing them for good, Churches tend to hold on to “congregation-approved” programs even if they are unhealthy for their spiritual growth and outright disobedience to the Great Commission. As these interventions are more for survival than a well thought out strategy, they become redundant and show no progress.
Many churches have a mission statement. They know why they exist. They have vision. They know where they believe God has called their ministry to be in the future. What they don’t have is a strategy on how to see that vision get accomplished. Without a clearly defined strategy, churches stagnate without progress. They do the same programs with different names hoping it will help them move towards their vision. The outcome is that programs get added with no productive results. Blogs like these are ever resented because the truth hurts, therefore avoided. Every believer is a Church and until each Church member realizes his/her personal responsibility towards Christ’s mission, The Church building is misleading hoards of people to Christ-less eternity. Trevor Sheatz makes strong point when he refers to four things that cannot save our soul from hell and they are:
Attending Church every week,
Being a moral person,
Doing good works for the poor,
Being raised in a Christian family
Only faith in the finished work of Lord Jesus and obedience to Christ mission, the Great Commission.
You may read the last blog HERE
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