This year was a big year for me as I celebrated my 40th birthday. Thankfully I didn’t have a mental breakdown or a mid-life crisis…at least I think I didn’t. Sometimes when we go through those major life milestones we begin to think existentially. Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I doing? And having those thoughts aren’t always bad. It allows us to try and refocus our life and purpose and I think churches should have those thoughts too.

We are coming off of an unprecedented year in the life of Congregational Bible Church. I know you are probably sick of hearing about Covid, in relationship to the church, but as things go back to normal it is a good time for us to reflect and consider why are we here?

Do we exist as a church simply to gather together socially? Do we have events and activities just to have events and activities? Are we here just to make sure we meet the budget and come back another year…just to come back another year?

Well, our church does have a vision statement and it is good to be reminded of it. Our vision statement reads: to help people grow spiritually so that they impact others for Christ. I think that statement answers the existential question of ‘why are we here.’ There are two purposes for CBC’s existence: equipping and evangelism.

First, the church exists to equip the saints. Ephesians 4:11-12 makes this clear. It says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastor teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” The point of having a pastor teacher is to equip the saints. Equipping is to fit or train someone, to prepare them for a work. This is reflected in the part of the vision statement that calls on the church to ‘help people grow spiritually.’ That is the idea of equipping. People are prepared and trained through the teaching of the Word to be able to do the work of service to build up the body. The church needs to equip and the people need to be equipped. Events and activities are fun and good, but they pale in comparison to the real purpose of spiritually equipping our people to live the Christian life and build up the Body.

The second purpose of CBC is to evangelize the world. That is included in the second part of the vision statement which reads ‘to impact others for Christ.’ Yes, that includes far away countries and people groups, but it starts here at home. Jesus left us with the marching orders to make disciples (Matt 28:19). He told us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt 5:13-16). But even more than just being salt and light, we are to engage non-Christians with the gospel. That means it begins with us initiating encounters with non-Christians. Jesus time and time again would begin the conversations with non-believers. He even said He came to ‘seek’ the lost (Luke 19:10).

As a church we cannot forget or ignore this vitally important purpose of our existence. We exist to evangelize! Not just to be a place where unbelievers can find the truth if they come, but to be a church that actively reaches out to unbelievers with the truth! A church’s growth is always contingent on the believers actively sharing their faith.

To put it very bluntly: a church that does not have an evangelistic mindset will not survive. Eventually the children will grow up and move away and the older folks will pass on. Who does that leave in the pews? Nobody. But I would submit to you that we must evangelize not just to keep the doors open, but to be fully in line with the purpose of the church outlined by the Lord. You are here to be My witnesses, Jesus told His disciples in Acts 1. We must think the same way. We are here to be His witnesses, His testifiers, His evangelists, that is our main purpose. Even the equipping part is so that we can go out and better impact others for Christ.

Why do we exist? To equip the saints to evangelize the community. Without this basic understanding of purpose we simply flounder along, aimlessly doing things just to do things. I don’t want to do that and I think you don’t want to either. As we have a time of restarting and renewing, post Covid, let us call ourselves back to our main purpose.