Knowing and Growing - Purpose of the Local Church

We're continuing on with this theme of the church. We started off the first three months of the year in summary with knowing the Lord. Most of that individually, a little bit of it together, knowing the Lord. And then we went through what are the processes that God has in place for us, for us who believe. And we talked about being conformed and transformed and sanctified and growing and discipling, being discipled, being made Christ's disciple as a process.

And now we're turning here to the last quarter, which, like I said, ends up being truncated a bit because we won't have the elective the last two Sundays of the year, December 24th and 31st. So, but we're looking at what are the things that God has in mind and his purposes for the church, and particularly, that's the title of today, The Purpose of the Local Church. So we start off with some bullet points here.

Over various times and places, by the way, is the church varied over times and places? All kinds, yep. Even this church is varied over times. So, over various times and places, the Church has taken on purposes which have ranged from a social club. Ever seen that? The Church is mainly a social club? Bible teaching. That's always just a place to teach the Bible. That's it. Moral compass. A social activist. Sometimes you'll have people, boy, being socially active in some form or another and trying to influence society. express some social values, it gets to be what it's all about. Political and judicial entity.

Over in Europe, the church was often a center of political control, even to the point of getting military. Today, over in Europe, the churches are at your option, kind of the county recorder's office, recording births and marriages and deaths and things like that. You can do it at the Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church or those sorts of things, but you don't have to. So they give you options for that.

And so the church at various times has been very political and judicial. The synagogues, by the way, were also very much judicial entities. We think of a synagogue as just a Jewish church. Well, no. Synagogues could fine people in New Testament times. Synagogues, you could go and get your whippings up to 39 at a time.

Yeah. We don't do that here, and that's a good thing. Okay, so then you've got a soul-winning center, and that's one of the issues that we'll talk about here shortly. A gaming activity center. Some people never don the door of a church unless it's bingo, right? A gaming activity center. A social services center.

So what kind of social services have churches been a place for in the past, or presently? Distributing food and clothing? Yeah, there's a place where you deal with those who are more needy and you have food and clothing and things of that sort. We still get a lot of calls from people, you know, I need a place to stay, I can't pay my utility bill.

You know, all sorts of things like that. And it's not that we're entirely unresponsive to that, but we certainly don't want to get defined as that. We also have a religious ritual dispenser. Some churches, boy, they're all about the rituals. Don't know what it means, but boy, we sure do them. By the way, let's ask, how did that happen? How did churches get turned into religious ritual dispensers?

It's kind of Old Testament stuff, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Here's what's interesting. Over a decade ago, Nancy arranged through a friend of hers for me to meet with a local Orthodox rabbi. And his first name was Yossi. So I met with this guy for a couple hours. This was fascinating. And he seemed actually to understand grace. He said, oh boy, the Catholics go and tear down all the Jewish stuff and then rebuild it all over again. And that's essentially what happened.

Here's the apostle John. He writes Revelation about 95 AD. By 96 AD, he was home with the Lord, the last apostle to go home with the Lord, and the only one to die a natural death from any record that we have. That same year, a guy named Clement writes from Rome to the church at Corinth and begins taking on the position of a bishop. By 170 AD, the church began calling pastors priests. By 220 AD, so John had only been home with the Lord for about 125 years, by 220 AD, both the Lord's table and baptism were seen as accomplishing something spiritually, not just symbolic, not just a memorial, but accomplishing something spiritually.

And it developed from there. And pretty soon all the rituals are what you've got to do. smaller scale, even like here, growing up, we would take the offering and then the ushers would take it up and lay it on the altar. Yeah, yeah, where's the altar? Yeah, what are you altering? Right? Yeah, so we can end up having stuff like that kind of creep back in, you know, if we're not careful and even, you know, okay, what we call the pastor or we call, you know, we'll say an altar call. Well, heaven sakes, what's an altar call, you know? This is going to get bloody. Yeah, yeah, it's going to get bloody. We're going to sacrifice this guy up here.

No, but you're correct that it is real easy for things from the Old Testament to start creeping back in, and what has happened at a lot of churches, I use that in the sense of Christendom, is that a lot of those things that Christ died to separate us from get pulled back in.

As a matter of fact, between the Jews, the Reformed folks, the Catholics, and the Orthodox, they all have different definitions of the Ten Commandments. Every single one of those groups that I just listed has a slightly different breakdown of the Ten Commandments. And I say, who cares?

It's like in most everything in life, it's balance. Trying to maintain that balance between, well that's what James was about, between works and non-works. You could say the same thing about parenting. Should you spank or shouldn't you spank? Should you discipline or shouldn't you discipline?

It's all about this This balance that we try to live. And one of those key things is understanding. Why are we doing this? For a number of these things, there is certainly a place for it, even biblically. I have a hard time justifying the gaming, but anyway. But looking through a lot of these, there is a place for these.

What happens is that becomes the focus and central And it's just a part of recognizing that the church has gotten defined for a lot of different people, a lot of different groups, to be one of these things. Brad Mastin, who's been up at Fort Collins Bible Church for a while now, but for a time he was working in Korean churches here in the Denver area. There were, at the time, something around 15,000 to 20,000 Koreans, many of them in, I would say, Protestant churches.

But in great part, all the men had to have a title. You've got to be called an elder, a deacon, or else you're just nobody. So all the men had to have a title and it was used significantly for making business connections. It was business networking. That's what was, you know, one of the main and central purposes of the Korean churches. Business networking.

So I don't have it on the list here. So it can develop into other things. That's why I think it's important we look at these, some of these we look at and we go tsk tsk and shake our heads, but really what is lost is what is the purpose of the local church. And losing focus on what that purpose is, is where all the diversions come from and we get our focus off of what's really happening here. So, now if I left any off here. Oh, surely. Most certainly. And can you think of something particularly comes to mind? It's not on my list here, aside from adding network. Pardon? Outreach. Outreach. OK. When you say outreach, what kind of thing do you think about?

Similar to the... social activist, but more reaching into the community's needs. Like when the hurricanes came through and they expect the church to be opened up and receive the people and give them support because they are Christians. So there is an outreach function expected on the part of a lot of Christians and even people out in the world will expect the church to have various kinds of outreach programs and things of that in place.

So one of the key issues we focus on here is, is the church a soul winning station or a soul building station? The truth is that's really only one of the items where we can get off track. But it's at least something to take a look at. What are some of the ways in which churches have become a soul winning station, either in times past or more recently? Well, in the church we used to go to, and I really support the program, but Awanas was a soul winning, the camp that you have, Camp Helam, that's in a sense soul winning. There's an aspect of that. Evangelism.

I feel like Graham and the program set the stage. Right, so that we have para-church ministries that are primarily evangelistic, right? And we think of a lot of those in terms of large-scale gatherings. We'll meet in stadiums and amphitheaters and large gathering areas for those, sometimes open, sometimes enclosed. Yeah, so we oftentimes will think of a parachurch ministry in that sense.

Yeah. How about TV? Okay, television. Yeah, there's another one with our modern media that is key. So let's ask this question. How about things like radio, television, in these days, internet? Is that good or bad? It could be both, and I think you're right. Can you explain what you mean by both, or it could be both? Well, it depends on what the teaching is, I mean, the premise of the teaching, but it can be good because lots of people can listen to it and get exposed and maybe sparks of enthusiasm or some questions or some interest and they can get to real people to get some real answers instead of just hearing one.

People have one thought or one just, I don't know. There's been so much misinformation over radio and television and promote it, but if it sparks someone's interest, that's good. Yeah, so for instance, we have people who listen regularly to the teaching at Holly Hills. And we have not done the videos, but we've done audio recordings, and we have people who very regularly will you know, listen to the teachings at Holly Hills. And interestingly, they're from all over the place, you know, here in the U.S. and sometimes internationally. So if we have that, you say, well, that's a good thing that they have that available to them. Frequently, why is it that they're listening from some great distance? It's often because what's available locally is not something they're happy or satisfied with.

That can often be the case. So you'll have that. Is it also possible that what is offered out there in the way of things that are recorded will lead people astray? It can be, right? So there's a hazard from that, that people get sucked into teaching that is at least watered down, or possibly even full of error, and that people get pulled into that. So there's a hazard with that, and in some cases it's hardly even related to At the local church, you just have somebody who's a teacher, and they'll teach, and it's recorded, and out it goes.

Also along with that, frequently you have someone who says good things along with things that aren't good. That's fairly common. So one of the difficulties is that. There's another issue that may be the case. Suppose I've got somebody who's recorded and all that. Is that the same as being a part of and involved with a local church body? If you're able to listen to or watch a video or something like that.

You don't have the fellowship. Ah, so there's not fellowship with other believers, right? Remember we talked earlier about all the different spiritual gifts? So what's happened is that person has received from one person's spiritual gift at best, but all the other spiritual gifts get truncated because there's no exposure.

And sometimes people don't have much choice, but the ideal thing, what God intends, as the best is that there is a local church body and that good, sound, solid teaching is something that's a part of the overall thing that takes place in the church. Okay, so you've got both pluses and minuses to some of these audio and video recordings and even written things that are passed along. Boy, today the ability to pass along things, you know, PDF files, PowerPoint and Word files and things of that sort.

I mean, it's just really kind of amazing. Okay, so let's take a look at this chart here on the next page. That's on the back side of page two. That's all we have here. This is by George Zeller of Middletown Bible Church. And I've got just a few minor edits on that.

So anyway, he has on the left, the local church is primarily a soul winning station. So in older style, people would come to church and it doesn't matter what you're teaching on, the final message is what? is an altar call or something about evangelism. Every teaching ends up being focused on evangelism. Let me ask this question, just to be real blunt.

Is that biblical or not biblical? It's biblical as far as presenting the gospel. Yeah, in other words, the gospel may be presented. By the way, is it possible that the gospel isn't? It's possible that there's some other presentation. Just, you know, you need to make a commitment to Christ, or you just need to, you know, feel really bad for your sins. Yeah, and so it's possible that the so-called gospel message is not the real gospel. That's what's one hazard.

Yeah. You said, what, 30,000 different Yeah, the latest count over 30,000 different denominations. So there's 30,000 Gospels? Well, and so you think about it, the first question is what they teach in order for someone to be saved, what is that message? And that's not consistent.

You have a great number of groups within Christendom I'll call it that, who don't teach a saving gospel message. They just come here and join our church and sign here and promise that you're going to give this much and all that. And so in the middle of it, you make a commitment and all that, but it could be that there's no saving gospel message even ever delivered. Most of these groups where they're coming to your door two by two, don't have a saving gospel message.

So that's one hazard. But even, let's say right here, you come into the church building, and boy, at the end of every service, they're going to press you, you know, boy, I want to see a hand raised, I want to see you come forward, And we use the term altar call, not killing anybody, not sacrificing anything. But we'll call it an altar. So there's that. Now, do you see examples of that in the New Testament anywhere? No way. So let's think through it. When you look through it, we're going of course through the Book of Acts.

Is there any instance of an evangelistic message at a church gather? Paul at Ephesus? But that was in Ephesians, not Acts. Yeah, okay, so here is writing to the church at Ephesus, is that what you mean? So I'm trying to figure, do we have an example of a church gathering where that takes place? How about his revelations of mysteries? Okay, and the revelation of mysteries was to whom? The church. It's to the church, right?

But in terms of evangelism, it's tough to come up with one. Now, so I looked around, looked and looked and looked, What I see is 1 Corinthians 14, the teaching on spiritual gifts, specifically looking at prophecy in tongues, in 1 Corinthians 14. So he says, if an unbeliever comes among you, and the point is not, if an unbeliever comes among you, do you have an evangelistic message for that person? But rather, if an unbeliever comes among you, how will they interpret what's going on among you as a church body? Will they, by looking how you're working among yourselves as a church body, will they think you're nuts, or will they glorify the Lord? But even in that one instance, because I've looked around, even that one instance that I can find, if an unbeliever should come among you, in 1 Corinthians 14, It's not a, make sure you've got an evangelistic message all the time.

Now, have we had people who have come to Holly Hills, and as a result of coming to Holly Hills, end up being saved? Yes. Has happened. Right? And somewhere in the New Testament, after the first four, God says, be prepared. to tell what you believe. Right, so this is Peter. Be prepared to give an answer, right? So a preparation for it, yes.

Sometime back, we had a lady, and by the way, I don't believe I have the gift of evangelism, but we had a lady come up to me and said, I need you to tell me about this grace stuff. So Nancy and I met with this lady, and we had a Bible study in the Gospel of John, and by the time we got to Chapter 3, she was saved. But it was because of the Word of God, And it wasn't because we gave an evangelistic message, but we did talk about grace, and it took a while for her to sink in what it meant to be saved, but she did understand and did believe. So the one approach that you see on the one hand is to give this evangelistic message, and then what does that say in terms of the church?

What are you going to spend time doing in the church service? Glorifying God. You're going to glorify God, because certainly that's what the Bible talks about. But what is going to be the focus of the message, and what are you going to spend time on in the church service? Yeah, in other words, it means you're going to have a focus on talking about salvation, and specifically with the idea that there are people among you who are not saved who need to hear the gospel. So, the question is, then, a few different things.

One is, a pastor should be gifted to do what? to teach among a number of different things that are included within that pastoral role. And we also have electives here in which we have people who are not necessarily claiming to be shepherds or pastors, but they teach, right? And so we have people who are elders or pastors or shepherds who teach, and we also have people who are gifted as teachers who teach. So we've got both of those things going on. Are they necessarily gifted in evangelism? No. So one of the things that that does is it calls on at least the pastor, and sometimes others, it calls on at least the pastor to express a giftedness that he or she may not have.

You also have no explicit statement anywhere in the New Testament that says, be sure when you gather as a church that you present the gospel every time. And especially towards the end. Make sure that people either raise their hand or come forward. Right? Just the term shepherd, I was just thinking, the shepherd doesn't make sheep, he just leads them. Yes. Sheep are already sheep. Yes. So, one is you're often asking the person who is shepherding, or those who are teaching, you're often asking them to step into a giftedness they may or may not have.

And by saying we do it every week, and by the way, Nancy and I know a fellow who was a pastor at a church and after being there some time, they let him go because he didn't do that. He didn't, you know, they dismissed him because he wasn't doing this every week, you know, altar call kind of thing. And they said, you're gone. And so I was like, wow.

But to them, that was so important that you had to do that. In fact, there was, I don't believe the fellow was gifted as an evangelistic, you know, as an evangelist. And so giving an evangelistic message every time was outside of his giftedness. And we can't really find a circumstance where the church is the place for evangelism. Then here's the other thing.

Is the church a gathering place for believers or unbelievers? Well, it's primarily believers. It's primarily believers. If you look at it, what is the church? Who are going to be raptured? The church. That church, those who have put their faith and trust in Christ for salvation, those people will be raptured.

The giftedness in the church body, with the exception of evangelism, is all ministry within, in great part. with the exception of evangelism. Yes? Going back to the evangelism and the evangelist, it's the word and the Holy Spirit that brings salvation to an individual. So is it the heart of the individual that's different as far as an evangelist? Because they see a person as being unsaved and the burning desire If you look at it, explicitly it's a spiritual gift.

We see it mentioned, for example, in Ephesians 4.11. It's one of the five spiritual gifts that are given. Evangelism. So now, let's talk about that. That's the giftedness. What does that look like? Does it always look the same?

No, because you could say, well, he's a good speaker, or he's a gifted orator, or whatever. Or is it the burning desire in the person's heart to save someone, or to present the Gospel appropriately? Yeah, first of all, what you have is that people who are gifted with evangelism do have a desire to share the good news, and that's principally in their focus. God's given them that as a work of the Holy Spirit, a desire to share the good news and to see that people need that. And so that's one, is their perspective is they're looking at people from that standpoint.

I can do that, but frankly I have to say that's not my giftedness, right? But someone with the gift of evangelism, that's their perspective. But there still has to be some growth there, doesn't there? I mean, as far as, you know, if you're an evangelist, there's got to be some spiritual growth and some learning before you go out there. Part of that would be the learning part. Yeah, so let's take a look at it. Is it possible someone is gifted with evangelism but they're a brand new Christian? Yeah, could happen. I've seen it. Someone's really a brand new young Christian gifted with evangelism.

Over time, does that person have the opportunity to kind of grow in that gift and to develop it? Yeah, that could happen too. And what it says in Hebrews, that by this time you should be teachers? Okay, so yeah, he's talking to the, in this chapter 5, by this time you should be teachers, but for all the teaching that you've received, instead, you know, you're dull of hearing, and have somebody has to go back to the baby stuff.

So someone with the gift of evangelism, there's also a sense of scale. We think often of evangelists that deal with people in larger numbers, and there are people who focus on that. How many of you have ever known or had personal contact with somebody that deals with people more in larger groups?

Here's something interesting. Now, kind of one of the names that comes to mind from times past is Billy Graham. But when I was about 20, there was a fellow, excuse me, when I was about 10, there was a fellow who was about 20 who came to visit at Peninsula Bible Church where I was growing up at the time. And his name was Luis Palau. And Luis Palau, he's not much older, but he essentially spent a career going out and evangelizing internationally, largely in Latin America, and evangelizing in large groups in those especially Latin American countries. And so there was an organization that developed around him and everything else. And we had him over for lunch at our house when he was about 20. It was real interesting to see what the Lord did over the decades.

So it happened that my sister-in-law left. She and my younger brother got married over 25 years ago. Anyway, she had an uncle up in the Portland area who was dying. And so she made arrangements. She was concerned because he wasn't saved. She made arrangements to go up and fly up there and see him with the hopes of presenting the gospel. And he died before she got there. And so she was really just, oh, a crestfallen.

But when she did go there, we encouraged her to. And when she got there, she found out that her uncle's neighbor was, guess who? Louise Palau. And Louise Palau, who goes to large evangelistic groups, came over and gave the gospel to my sister-in-law's uncle. And he was saved. But she didn't find that out until she went up there. So here's Luis Palau, who had a big organization and all kinds of evangelistic groups and everything else, but he would walk to a next door neighbor who needed the gospel and see that the gospel was needed and present it.

So it's kind of neat to see, you know, I only deal with large groups. He saw the need, whether it was a mass of people, and here's a whole city and region, or whether it was a next door neighbor who was going to go home without the Lord, and he was concerned about that. Or, excuse me, going to die without the Lord. So it can be either one. If someone with the gift of evangelism will see the need, oftentimes whether it's individual or whether it's in that context.

Just this last week, I go on Facebook, some people just go crazy with that stuff and some people drive them so crazy they get off of it. But I was on Facebook with a guy who does street ministry in New York and just this week you got communicating with him and befriending him. And so he does street evangelistic ministry in New York, and that's, you know, he has a gift of evangelism, and he goes about, you know, presenting the gospel to people. And so, anyway, it's kind of cool.

The Lord works with lots of different people, and lots of different contexts, and lots of different scales. And we tend, because of our era, to get certain names and programs and whatnot as high profile, but the truth is, The Lord gifts people who we never heard of with the gift of evangelism and the truth is that's in great part what took place during the New Testament times when they had no cell phones and radios and internet connections and emails and all that.

Sam Dalton, yeah, is a local example, a fellow who is a gift of evangelism. And by the way, did you know Sam personally, or at least know about him? He's home with the Lord now, is that correct? What can you tell us about other things in terms of his involvement with the Church and things of that sort?

Not a lot. It seems like his name came up quite often, different places, he was all around, and yet he wasn't this massive bunch of people who were with him all the time. His wife had been here a couple of times in recent years. Yeah, and I've met her. Yeah, different people in the church body here have had contact with her or even with him in earlier times. I think he even camped by her house one time when I was growing up and heard him there a number of times. Yeah. Nancy and I know a fellow, he just strikes up conversations all the time. He's on an airline flight. He'll be talking to his neighbor. Pretty soon he's presenting the gospel. That's what he has a heart for.

So you'll have people who do it kind of one at a time, small groups at a time at most. Others who do the whole range, like I give you the example of Luis Palau, where he'd do this big international ministry with large stadium gatherings, multiple nights. and also go and see his next-door neighbor who doesn't know the Lord yet. Yeah? So doesn't that all have something to do with the success ratio also? I mean, I've heard a lot of people present the gospel over and over and over and over again and weren't very successful and then there's other people that, you know, it just seems to, like Billy Graham, it just seems to work. Let's ask this question. What about People who present the gospel and don't get anywhere with it, or at least not much. What's going on there? Does it mean they're doing something wrong? Maybe. It could be, right?

One of the things we'll be seeing, we're going to start doing the next chapter in the book of Acts. Have you ever heard the idea that when you present the gospel, you've got to hit them with the law? This is Ray Comfort is one of the more high-profile Christian names who promotes that. Kirk Cameron is another one. You hit them with the law with the idea, see, you can't keep the law, you've broken it, and therefore you're a sinner.

Well, here's what's really interesting, and we're going to see this, because the Book of Acts is a test case. We have from the book of Acts, the first missionary journey, we see this in chapter 14, the longest evangelistic message, and the first missionary journey, we've got it recorded, Dr. Luke records it. So a test case, is the law presented in this evangelistic discourse that the Apostle Paul has? So we'll look at that, and then we get to chapter 17, and guess what? We have again the longest recorded evangelistic message of the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey, in chapter 17.

And so the question is, does he present the law then? And I'll give you, we're going to cheat now and give you the answer. In neither case does he present the law. But in both cases, he goes to Genesis 1-11. So this is a tremendous insight, because we have whole Christian ministries pushing this, you've got to hit them with the law, hit them with the law, hit them with the law, and show that, but that's not what we see. That's not what we see. And by the way, when Paul goes to the Jews, that's what he does. Does he go to the Jews and hit them with the law for evangelistic purposes?

No. We have no evidence, biblically, that that's what needs to be the focus. Yeah? Neither did Peter. When he gave that sermon that converted what, 3,000 people? Yeah, and we have Peter's discourses earlier where he's talking to Jews. Certainly that ought to be about the law, right?

That's not his focus. So as you look through the examples that we have throughout the book of Acts, so here's Peter, and here's Paul, and dealing with Gentiles, dealing with Jews, guess what? You just don't find it. You don't find it. So in terms of evangelism, we've got some very good resources to present to us what's going on.

When Paul gets among the Gentiles, chapter 14, chapter 17, one of the things we see is the focus is not hidden with the law, the focus is on Genesis 1-11. Why? That's where sin came from. That's where sin came from, right? Shows the need for that. What else does it show? The seed. Genesis 3. You're correct. You're correct that that's in there. What's interesting is, as we'll see, that isn't where the focus of the evangelistic message is.

Why in both cases, talking to Gentiles, would he bring up Genesis 1-11? Without the shedding, there is no remission for sin? Well, certainly, and actually, believe it or not, the Gentiles would actually believe that. But, but, the problem was worldview. And we're going to see that as we get into Acts 14 and 17. Worldview.

Acts 17 particularly, the Gentiles in the Greek-speaking world, first of all, they didn't believe in a resurrection. Belief in a resurrection was like, people in the culture just don't believe that. No resurrection. So to go and talk about a resurrection was like, what are you talking about?

So that's one. Another is that the basic Greek philosophical viewpoint is that the physical universe is eternal and the gods come and go. So what you have to reverse in their worldview is there is a resurrection, there was one, there will be one, and so what does he talk about in both cases? There is a God who created everything. God is eternal and not the universe. So that has to be reversed before anything is going to make any sense. and primarily monotheism.

Yeah, here's what's interesting. In terms of monotheism, many of the Greek philosophical backgrounds actually believed in a single god. Yes, Plato, for example, is one that believed in a single god, different from the Greek pantheon. That's probably what you're thinking of, is the Greek pantheon, where they'd have all these different Greek gods. But the Greek philosophical background, there were those, and I say Plato is one that comes to mind, who taught a monotheistic concept of God. Was Aristotle also? Let's see. He was kind of the primary thinker. He was one of those very influential, And his was more kind of earth-based. Plato was the one who had this concept of a separate God. You have to think about and check out Aristotle.

But, for example, Paul talks to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in chapter 17, and both of them believe that the physical universe is eternal. instead of God is eternal, and created the universe. So it's a worldview problem, and also just a resurrection problem, and then a sin problem.

And they had to get a lot of that turned around in their thinking before anything made any sense. And guess what's going on in our culture? We're drifting towards a universe that's eternal. and away from a spiritual perspective. We're drifting in that direction. That's what the kids are getting in school. Carl Sagan said a quarter of a century ago, there's nothing but what we see and observe and all that. OK, we've run out of time.

But when we look at the purpose of the local church, I think just to bring it back here, is the purpose of the local church is not evangelism as in the old time sense of altar calls and everything gets turned into an evangelistic message, but what's happened more recently is there's been a tendency, you ever hear of seeker sensitive churches? Where the whole church service is designed to bring in unbelievers. Everything is focused on the unbelievers. As the biblical picture is, our church gathering is essentially a soul-building station, and it is a place of the gathering of those who are in the body of Christ, with bringing in unbelievers being an incidental and not a primary focus.

Alright, so, let's pray. Thank you Lord for your word. Thank you that though certainly many Christians and those within Christendom have become focused on all sorts of things and distracted in a thousand ways and more. We just thank you that your word does bring us into a clear focus even as to what is evangelism and how that primarily should be taking place. and also the purpose of our gathering here as a church body. We thank you that as we gather we have a clear focus and a clear purpose. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.