What does the Church exist for?

Here's another way to think about the whole 'give yourself away' idea:

I believe that churches exist for the sake of others. Churches that exist for their own sake take on a survival mentality and lose sight of their calling and purpose. But if churches exist for the sake of others, the obvious question remains: who are the 'others' they exist for? Here's what I think:

Church exists for the sake of God
Worship is our highest priority. As the Westminster Catechism puts it, 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.' If that building block is not in place, the rest of the building will collapse. However, if it is in place, out of the overflow of this worshipping relationship will follow my next point.

Church exists for the sake of the world
As Bishop William Temple once said, 'the Church is the only institution on earth that exists for its non-members.' The mission of the church is to proclaim and demonstrate God's love to a hurting world. This involves not just meeting people in their place of spiritual need (and offering only a salvation that deals with their spiritual state), but also meeting them in their place of physical need and emotional need. For this to happen, churches must be fully engaged in their local communities to the point where the well-being of their own local community is intrinsically linked to their own personal well being. Only when that is the case are we engaged in incarnational mission. Without such an incarnation there can be no long-term transformation of a community.

So worship leads to mission. But mission has to lead back to worship. As John Piper states: “Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship therefore is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of mission because in mission we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.”