What is the Church for? [10"TU]

Ten minute writing needs writing from the top of your head and seeing if free thought can be worth reading. I had occasion this evening to think about how a church should be ordered. It is something I have taken for granted, largely, assuming that to which I am accustomed to be somewhat just fine, if not a suitable norm. Of course there is this needed point of reference known as the Bible, without which the Church, rightly considered, would not be even conceived.

How should the church be constituted? Purpose seems the first question with which to answer such a question. What is the church for? To use the language of the academics, What is its telos, its end?

If I had to toss out the answer it would be this: the church is for worship. That is, it is to be a place where people gather to be reminded what matters most and how to best align their lives with that. The various means of order, organization, liturgy, leaders, congregants, locations – anything associated with the nomenclature “church” should serve the purpose of worship.

Again, what is worship? It is safest to say I do not know, or perhaps better to say the scholastics know, and there are simple answers, but for me it is found in a sort of triangulation. As noted above, worship recognizes that which is of ultimate value and by various means seeks to align with that. We believe the Living God is necessarily the greatest, the ultimate, the summum bonum. Further, we believe Jesus revealed the Living God and was Himself also God. This leads to Trinitarian grounding which necessarily informs our worship and great men – and women! – across the years have helped us gain understanding on that.

Triangulation? Yes, the meaning of worship is found in various ways, not least in suffering where God meets man and at the end of ourselves there is nothing left but to worship.

The church is to serve this end. That is paramount. Various means to that end are prescribed in the Scriptures and some fall to necessity and common sense. As there would scarce be enough time, and since I am out of it, that is all for now. With love and yes, worship. There is nothing else.