Me: Would you like to join our club? It's really fun.
Unbeliever: That sounds great. What is it?
Me: Oh, it's the self-perpetuating club. Our purpose is to establish clubs everywhere we can.
Unbeliever: Wow, sounds like quite a vision. What do your clubs do once they are established?
Me: Well we make more clubs, of course.
Unbeliever: Oh, I see. And what do you talk about at your meetings?
Me: We talk about getting out there to get more people into the club. Would you like to come so that you too can be taught how to get more people into the club?
Unbeliever: No thanks. The club doesn't seem to really do anything.
Me: What?! Of course it does. It's the most important thing any club could ever do. We perpetuate ourselves!
Unbeliever: Have fun. I think I'll do something with my life that matters.
I am a part of a church planting movement, and I have a desire to see a thousand churches planted in the next thirty years (no matter how long it takes). But when evangelism and church planting becomes the primary focus of the church, it quenches my desire to do either. Is the purpose of the church to perpetuate itself? If not, what is it?
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2 comments:
I love the dialogue. I think the purpose of Christianity and the church is summed up in Jesus' statement that the first and most important command is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbor. The primary purpose of our "club" is not to make more clubs (even in a church-planting stream) but to increase the love of God. Secondly, as we do that, we are and ought to actively love people. (This is Ben.)
Ben,
I agree, and I think this is pretty close to how I would put it too. Sometimes I think we take the commands to love God and love others for granted - after all, shouldn't everyone know that already? I think this is the biggest danger for churches like mine that really want to change the world.
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