Why does the church exist? If God is truly infinitely loving, beautiful, just, kind, powerful, and majestic, what would be the best thing he could give to a creature whom he loves? Site by Mere. It is the hope of the world. Churches that hold this view aim make their focus “faithfulness” or “discipleship,” but often such words simply cover up a lack of evangelistic zeal. I believe that an exceedingly high view of God and his glory and majesty will help us see our current circumstances in their right context. Top 12 Bible Verses-Glorify God ... And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Are there any ways in which our church needs to grow in this? Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Please note that, in light of current health concerns, services are being handled differently each Sunday. This is what the prophet Jeremiah was getting at when he records God saying: Your idolatry in choosing something else over the glory of God is tragic in two ways, You have rejected God as the source of all goodness and beauty. Instead of making decisions based on the preferences of unbelievers, the church should make decisions based on the preferences of Christians. The church’s fundamental reason for existence is to glorify God, and EVERYTHING else flows from that truth, Through our gathering to worship God together, Through the giving of an offering - when we give our money, it is a demonstration of God’s supreme worth - to believe that to contribute to the ministry and gospel witness of the church is so much better than using that money for whatever I would rather do with it, Through our lives of obedience to and hope in God, even and especially when it entails something we don’t want to do, When you obey God when it’s hard and when it’s painful, you show his surpassing goodness because you demonstrate that you trust him more than yourself to make the most important decisions in your life, When the church obeys Jesus, we demonstrate to a watching world what he is like, This sword cuts both ways: the world assumes that the church is reflective of what God is like - a church displays to her community what God is like, for better or worse, This is why we don’t want to do anything as a church that would give people the wrong idea of what God is like, This is why we want to love one another as Jesus has loved us, serve one another as he has served us, bear one another’s burdens, sacrifice for one another, submit to one another, delight in one another, This is also why we practice loving church discipline when people are in unrepentant sin - because we do not want a watching world to get the idea that Jesus doesn’t really care about whether people are walking in sin or not. In lieu of a comments section, I accept and encourage letters to the editor. Howell Bible Church Address Information Zip Code Our task is not to define it according to our own desires or anyone else’s, but to learn how God defines it, then to follow him in obedience. Two, because we may end up thinking that there is one path moving forward that glorifies God and gives us hope for our future, and another path that doesn’t. We exist to glorify and enjoy God by bringing people to Jesus and to fulfilling involvement in His Church to be nurtured toward Christ-like maturity and to be prepared for ministry in the church and the world. The ministry 9Marks is fond of summarizing the basics of Christian worship in the simplest terms: “Read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.” Our worship services are a means of grace through which God speaks to us and transforms us by his Word. The Church Does Not Exist for the Sake of the World. Everything we do as a church is designed to flow out of this mission. Does it make known his goodness? We gather together to worship God in the ways he has revealed in the Bible. Every Christian is responsible for being a faithful ambassador for Christ in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Above him stood the seraphim. The Church exists to glorify God by making followers of Jesus all around the world. Their seeking was ultimately self-centered and led only to greater condemnation. We must do anything and everything we can to make church a place where they feel welcome and comfortable. Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write, “It is in the family of God that I am able to care and be cared for; love and be loved; forgive and be forgiven; rebuke and be rebuked; encourage and be encouraged. It is important to note that our concern here is not the universal church, which is comprised of all Christians of all times and places. You catch my drift. The Church Exists to Glorify God As we have said, the church is the assembly of the redeemed people of God and the body of Christ Therefore, the church was called into existence by the glorious act of God in the gospel Romans 3:23 explains, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” You’d think it would say that all have sinned and broken God’s commands, but to break God’s commands is to fall short of hitting the mark of reflecting God properly. Christ, equipping the saints, and evangelizing the world. Billtown Baptist Church is an evangelical community church rooted in the baptist tradition that exists to glorify God by making devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Today we are broadening our perspective from family to the church. We meet for worship every Sunday morning from 9:30am-10:45am. Working definition of glory: The glory of a thing is it’s unique characteristics that set it apart from others, The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land. These three purposes in turn serve the glory of God.” The local church exists to glorify God through worshipping him, edifying his people, and evangelizing the world. Because his glory is not dependent upon who sits in the white house: he is our hope, he is our joy, he is our future, he is our God, and there is no one like him, nothing that can stop him, nothing that confounds him, nothing that frustrates his plans and purposes. J.D. So what about you? If you would like to write a letter to the editor, you can do so here. We exist to glorify God. It will help you learn to structure your life to do the most good to the glory of God. Facebook Live. Press In | Dig Deep | Reach Out GROWTH CLASSES & SS tbcnh.org | 603.225.3999 info@tbcnh.org follow @tbcnh on IMPORTANT NEWS AND EVENTS From now until Sunday, January 3, we will live-stream our Sunday and Wednesday A low view of God results in all kinds of wrong theology and practice. An overemphasis on meeting the needs or desires of Christians can lead a church to neglect the Great Commission and sap her of zeal for reaching the lost. With an exceedingly high view of God. A healthy church is an evangelizing church. Enter Jesus. 43:7) and “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name…” (1 Chr. Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command, his disciples went out to the whole world to announce the Good News, spreading Christian communities everywhere. and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. While church is first a gathering of God’s people, it is also a gathering to which unbelievers are invited so they can hear the gospel and see it lived out by Christians. We hope to see you there for a time of fellowship, worship, teaching, and prayer. Rather, we are answering the question: What is the purpose of the local church? The love a Christian has for God is born of the Spirit and flourishes in faith. You are looking at God himself. What is God’s glory? Howell Bible church exists to worship the living God, equip the saints, and make disciples of all nations to the glory of God. Can you say no matter what happens on Tuesday, “he is my hope, he is my rock, he is my great treasure, he is my ultimate joy.”. If we accomplished every other secondary goal - What areas of your life don’t glorify God? Not His existence, but His existence in their lives. Therefore, to break God’s commands is to conceal God’s expression of himself, to cast a shadow on his glory. Churches that become insular rather than evangelistic will ultimately lose their love, their zeal, and their vitality. A second common view is that the local church exists for discipleship. The redemptive purposes of God: God’s work to redeem his broken world finds it’s culmination in the person of Jesus, and God’s greatest means of glorifying himself is seen in the gospel, In the perfect life of Jesus which he then offered as a substitution in our place so that by faith in him, his perfect righteousness might be counted to us, and our idolatrous sin might be born by him on cross, Through his grace, then he creates a people, a body, of those who by faith in the his finished work upon the cross have been reconciled to God, As we have said, the church is the assembly of the redeemed people of God and the body of Christ, Therefore, the church was called into existence by the glorious act of God in the gospel, The church exists because of God’s glory, his goodness, his infinite love and beauty and wisdom and justice, The church exists to make known God’s glory, his goodness, his infinite love and beauty and wisdom and justice. Right now, when I ask the question, “who is God and what is he like?” whatever the answer is deep in your being, that is the single most important thing about you. It exists to serve and strengthen Christians!” They claim that instead of putting all its energy into evangelism, the church should put all its energy into discipleship. Because the church adapts to the world in order to win the world, it ends up looking like the world. Kindred has been a proud co-sponsor of the KTT Leadership Conference since its inception. Harbor Church exists as a family of God’s people to glorify God in all things by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, equipping His saints, and engaging our community and the world with the love of Christ. Christ Covenant Church exists to glorify God by exalting . Live stream videos: Stay connected Sundays at 10 am. Freshwater Church in Springfield is a casual place for people who know they aren't perfect, living life together and helping each other learn about Christ. In creation, God reveals his power, creativity, sovereignty, and eternal nature, Written into human nature is the awareness that there is such a thing as right or wrong, Special Revelation - the particular ways in which God reveals himself in particular times and places to particular people, The main mode of this is of course the Bible, which is the record of God’s special revelation through human history. He is the creator who stands distinct from creation, He has created the universe, galaxies, stars, nebulas, black holes, dark matter, things on a scale of grandness that we cannot even comprehend, He has created things so small and intricate and complex that we can’t even perceive them: molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks, quantum particles, He is the only uncaused, independent being, Everything in the universe is dependent in that it depends on something else for it’s very existence, God is independent; he exists independently of anything else, uncaused, He cannot be measured, understood, contained, evaluated or held accountable to anyone else, He is the sovereign ruler of all things whose power, majesty, and authority are unmatched and unchallenged, He is perfect in his character and the source and standard of all goodness, He is perfect love, the source and standard of all love, He is perfect justice, the source and standard of all justice, He is perfect wisdom, the source and standard of all wisdom, There is no one like him - the scriptures cry out “who is like him” over and over, God’s glory is a short hand way of referring to all of his infinite goodness, beauty, love, justice, wisdom, The reason I say all of this is to just try to get it out of any of our heads that we can somehow stand in a place of control or critique over God - we do not decide who he is, It is critically important that when we think about God, the things we think actually need to correspond to the reality of who God is, God is not whoever or whatever we think he is or want him to be, God is not like us or anything we have imagined, - God is THE judge, and he says to the wicked man that his biggest mistake is that “you thought that I was one like yourself.”, God is who he is, and our thoughts about him either correspond to reality or they don’t, If they don’t, then we have simply created a god in our own image and decided to worship that. Christ Community Church – Christ Community Church of Ashton exists to glorify God by proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, and loving our neighbors. God has redeemd the church in order to glorify himself. Ultimately, the church exists to bring glory to his name through worship, discipleship, and evangelism. Romans 15:6 tells us: The church exists so . Mark Dever summarizes them in this way: “The proper ends for a local congregation’s life and actions are the worship of God, the edification of the church, and the evangelization of the world. Swirling around this is the question of how a church ought to even relate to all of this. Book Review – Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, The Bible Reading Plan I Recommend for 2021, The Death of My Son and the Birth of My Savior. In this way and so many others, the local church is God’s plan. So God, in his desire to glorify himself and reveal himself to humans, is dealing with more than just our ignorance and inability to comprehend his supreme majesty: he is dealing with sinful, idolatrous hearts that are bent away from him in on ourselves. Is God your greatest treasure and your ultimate hope? When it comes to a church’s evangelism, D.A. under the Lordship of Christ." He said, “I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.” And again, “The very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.” The past two decades of church growth have proven this model faulty at its very foundation. “Church is not a place that you go, or an event that you attend. The problem for us is that we have all, every one of us, rejected God and his glory, substituting it for things. A high view of God is at the core of how we live out our faith in response to Jesus’ love. In other words, why do we as Christians gather together in local congregations? I wrote this short, fast-paced, practical guide to productivity to share what I have learned about getting things done in today’s digital world. learn more ›. It is only small when our faith is small. Carey Baptist Church exists to glorify God by fulfilling the Great Commission. The second view, that the local church exists for the needs of Christians, is closer to the priorities of the Bible, but still misses them in significant ways. Why does the church exist? (1 Corinthians 10:31, Psalm 52:8,9, Mark 16:15, John 1:29-51; Luke 15, Kindred Church is the home church of Pastor Philip De Courcy located in Anaheim Hills, California, and exists to glorify God by making and maturing disciples of Jesus Christ. That Jesus is the ultimate self-revelation and glory of God. It assumes that their spiritual desires are genuine and that by following them they will arrive at truth and salvation. The community of Christians gathers to enjoy true Christian fellowship. The nature and character of God - Jesus is God become flesh, the fullness of deity crammed into a human frame - when you look at Jesus, you are not looking at simply a great moral teacher, you are looking at the radiance of the glory of God. Does the way you relate to your neighbors and coworkers glorify God? This distinctly Christian worship is not based on on the whims of believers or unbelievers, but carefully drawn from and centered upon the Bible. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. To make known to a broken world the surpassing, infinite goodness of almighty God. But do we actually know why we do this? Our mission is to make more and stronger disciples of Jesus. Church is a people to whom you belong . With time, these became well-organized churches with many faithful. Does the way you manage your money glorify God? All of which is essential to the task of being a disciple of the risen Lord Jesus.”, The local church exists to glorify God by evangelizing the world. TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH EXISTS TO GLORIFY GOD BY BEING AND MAKING DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST. Services: Sunday @ 10am. Because this view emphasizes the needs and desires of unbelievers, it inevitably and unsurprisingly causes the church to become like the world. “The very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.”. What we believe about God determines how we think and perceive everything else. Within that broad and all-encompassing purpose we can discern several subsequent ones. The answer to this question is: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. God desires to glorify himself because he loves us. Ultimately, this is the only reason for the church’s existence. Faith Church exists to glorify God by discipling people in the Gospel to love God, God's people, and God's world. It is worth, then, getting at the question of really the fundamental reason for the church’s existence - why does a church exist, what is really our core mission and purpose? What sets God apart? In this series of articles we are considering the purpose of many things we may take for granted, and so far we have looked at marriage, sex, and children. Our services are on Sunday mornings at 10:30 am. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The first view, that the local church exists for seekers, assumes that unbelievers know what they need the most. ADDRESS. The local church exists to glorify God by edifying his people. God is not in government, for the most part, and in some cases, government can be the enemy of the church, but the day is coming when “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11 The local church exists to glorify God through worshipping him. Freshwater Church exists to glorify God and advance the gospel in Northwest Springfield . Jesus is the pinnacle of God’s glorious self-revelation. Has the coming election dimmed your faith and lowered your view of God? If you believe that God’s ability to do whatever he wants to do is somehow going to be compromised one person or another sitting in the white house, then you have an exceedingly and tragically low view of almighty God. Greear says, “Without the mission, a church is not a church. Because reaching the lost is the ultimate purpose of the church, everything the church does—from preaching to worship to the design of the building—should be determined by the perceived needs or desires of the unchurched. enjoying him! Affection. Can an individual only glorify God through church attendance? Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. Carl Trueman says this: “When church is just one more product to buy or leave on the shelf, then marketing, not theology, become the driving forces in her life.”. My daily, curated collection of Kindle deals for Christians. There is no such thing.”. “Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. God desires to glorify himself in in all things. Problem: Every human has rejected God and substituted his glory and goodness for something else, and this is idolatry is at the root of all sin. and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. This is why Christ Community Church exists. Both of these views are problematic, though for different reasons. Does the way you treat your family glorify God? 3. This church exists by the grace of God, for the glory of God, which shall be the ultimate purpose in all its activities The fact that we only exist by God’s grace is so clearly expressed in Ephesians 2:- We were all hopelessly and helplessly lost without God (v. 12)- we were all spiritually dead in our sins (v. 1) Every Sunday, Christians gather together to worship God and spend time in fellowship. Because he desires to glorify himself, and will not share his glory with another. This is the heart of the “seeker-sensitive church” movement that was championed by Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, with Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Church serving as its primary text. “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). But what is it wrong for people to be self exalting but not God? One, because we may end up mistaking the glory of our earthly national identity for the glory, goodness, and infinite worth of God himself. When you hope in God despite the pain and suffering and uncertainty of life, you show his infinite beauty and goodness because you are demonstrating that HE IS ENOUGH for me, even when facing extreme pain and sorrow. The first is that the local church exists for evangelism. The Bible does not leave us uninformed when it comes to the purpose and the centrality of the local church. Lewis, in Mere Christianity: “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. It is the hope of the world. Advertisement - story continues below The church also exists for the edification, or building up, of the saints. It ensures that both the method and the message of the church bring glory to his name. Do we pause to consider the purpose of the local church? How do we begin to answer that question? In large degree it simply repackages the consumerism of the seeker-sensitive movement with a new target audience, so that the perceived needs of Christians become the ultimate determining factor for all that the church does. TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH EXISTS TO GLORIFY GOD BY BEING AND MAKING DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST. “It is my deep conviction,” says Warren, “that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart. The only possible answer here is: himself. Whatever else we may know about Christians, we know this: Christians are supposed to go to church. Ultimately, the church exists to bring glory to his name through worship, discipleship, and evangelism. II. In this view, the primary purpose of the local church is to draw unchurched people to the Christian faith. I worship and serve as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, and am a co-founder of Cruciform Press. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16). The local church was founded by God for the purposes of God and the glory of God. It’s just a group of disobedient Christians hanging out.” We do not need to look far to find many examples of churches that are full of well-taught Christians who have not seen someone saved in far too long. III. Why does God do this? Those who seek their own glory are often insecure and inauthentic, Ayn Rand called self exalting people “second handers”, People who live “second hand” from the praise and compliments of others, The businessman who boasts of his shrewd business practices that have made a lot of money, The person who studies simply to let you know how much they know about things, The person who constantly fish for compliments, These are people who don’t have basic self confidence and security, so rather than do things for the sake of doing the thing itself, they do things for the sake of creating and protecting an image or facade, We don’t like second handers; we admire people who have basic self confidence and don’t feel the need to solicit as many compliments as possible. NorthStar Baptist Church is a Bible-believing and family-friendly congregation located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The nations today pretty much deny God. But finding in him our ultimate joy and delight, our great treasure. There is no higher glory for you than to belong to Almighty God. If a church is not a “building”, why does one need to go? This is of ultimate importance for us this week: will we hope in God and trust in God and have confidence in God regardless of what happens on Tuesday? Christian love baptist church. When you tell people about what God has done on their behalf in the person and work of Jesus Christ, When you invite people to respond to God’s kindness and grace in the gospel, Deschutes County has around 200,000 people living in it; of those, 74% claim no religious affiliation, That means there are, give or take, 150,000 people who have no idea of the infinite goodness of God toward them in Christ and the surpassing value of knowing Jesus, And as we are devoting so much time and emotion and energy to political angst, those 150,000 are hurtling on toward a eternity separated from the glory of God. Of unbelievers, the primary purpose of the local church I worship serve... 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