On the all-night train from Chengdu to Liupanshui, Bekah’s city, I started writing an email to my friend Jared and it took on a life of its own. I thought it might be of general interest.

I’ve been talking with Mel and with friends a lot lately about what a church should look like, which is ultimately a question of what a church is for. Mel and I have been going to a church plant, a new church, for the past year or so. Our church is still in the beginning stages and things are somewhat fluid. What it will be is impossible to know, but what it ought to be should be and is a topic for thought and conversation. In the dead of night, on a stuffy, smoke-filled train ride across China.

I think of churches like houses–in every culture people build their houses out of the available materials to accomplish mostly the same ends. People build a house, whether it’s a grass hut or an igloo or a double-wide trailer, mostly to keep their family and their stuff out of the elements, more comfortable and safe than they would be sleeping on the open ground.

Churches seem like a similar case. Churches will, probably ought to, look differently depending on the culture they grow out of. It doesn’t matter too much what it looks like, how big it is, or what the music is like as long as the church is fulfilling its purpose.

Which begs the question, of course, What is the purpose of a church? Lots of people have lots of answers, but Jesus’ answer is the only one that matters–it’s His church.

Jesus says to his disciples at the end of Matthew, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to follow my commandments.” (I’m paraphrasing what people call the “Great Commission.”) At the end of Mark he says, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” And in Luke he seems to sum up his time on earth by saying (paraphrase), “it was written long ago that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would then be proclaimed in his name to all nations. You are witnesses of these things.” And John closes his book by saying, (another paraphrase) Jesus did many things, “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Does that answer the question of what the purpose of a church is? I think it starts to. Like John wrote, Jesus said a lot of things and I’ve only mentioned four of them. But these things are what he said to his followers, those who were to be the first church, as he was leaving them “in charge.” They were to make disciples, baptize them, teach people to follow what He had commanded, and “proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.”

“The Gospel” (also translated as “the Good News”) is outlined in the words of Jesus that Luke and John chose as a summary of his teaching: Because Jesus took the punishment that we had earned by our sins (he suffered and died) we can stop our rebellion against him and get a pardon, an amnesty–we can be forgiven (repentance and forgiveness.) By believing that Jesus was the one God sent, and accepting his perfect record instead of trying to earn our own, we are made acceptable to God. We can have the real life that comes from God, instead of the poisonous half life we’ve made for ourselves by rejecting God.

That’s the kernel of the Gospel, and that is what the church exists to proclaim. Jesus says at the end of Luke’s book that his followers are witnesses of all the things that happened.

What do you all think? Is that an accurate summary of what a church is for?

I think that Christians should and will do a lot more as they are obedient to Jesus–things like taking care of the poor, the sick, addressing and championing human rights issues, being on the front lines of taking better care of the earth–but all that and more should be the natural outgrowth of taking up the real life that God offers us. (And if we’re not doing any of that, and are not being moved to do anything like it, we have to wonder if we’re obeying him at all. We can’t pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and then live in ways that are direct opposition to what we know he would want us to do.)

So there’s a book. We’re almost to Bekah’s city–it’s 4:45am. Tell me what you think of this–if any of you have read this far you must have given this some thought.

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