Chapter 9

Speaker Bio: Author Bio:

Dr. Joel S. Woodruff Stephen Eyre
Vice President of Discipleship & Director, C.S. Lewis Institute
Outreach, C.S. Lewis Institute – - Cincinnati – Stephen Eyre has served
Joel Woodruff has worked in higher education, both in college campus ministry and pastoral
“tent-making,” nonprofit administration, and ministry for more than twenty years. He has
pastoral ministries in Alaska, Israel, Hungary, written numerous books, Bible study guides,
France, and Northern Virginia. He served as and devotional books that have been published
Dean of Students, Chaplain, and Professor of nationally and internationally through Inter-
Bible & Theology at European Bible Institute, Varsity Press, Zondervan, and Victor Press.
where he helped train Europeans both for pro- Stephen has written several study guides for
fessional ministry and to be Christian leaders C.S. Lewis Institute publications including
in the marketplace. Prior to joining the C.S. Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, and Let-
Lewis Institute, he was on the leadership team ters to Malcolm; Chiefly on Prayer, as well as
of Oakwood Services International, a nonprof- the Bible Study Questions for this publication.
it educational and humanitarian organization. He earned a B.A. in history from Clearwater
He is a graduate of Wheaton College, earned Christian College and a [Link]. from Covenant
his [Link]. from Gordon-Conwell Theologi- Theological Seminary.
cal Seminary, and has a doctorate in Organi-
zational Leadership from Nova Southeastern
University. As a Parish-Pulpit Fellow, he stud-
ied Biblical Backgrounds & Archaeology in
Israel for a year.

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The Mission of
the Church
One of the clearest directives Jesus has given us is known
as the Great Commission. We read in Matthew 28:18–
20 that we are to go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and teaching them to
obey all that Jesus commanded. For the church to fulfill
this important task, we must be willing to go wherev-
er the Lord asks and serve in whatever way he directs.
We’re not alone in this endeavor, however, as the Lord
has given us the Holy Spirit to empower and equip us
to accomplish this exciting mission. There is no greater
adventure on the planet than to be part of the expansion
of God’s kingdom on earth. The purpose of this study is
to help you catch Jesus’ vision for the world and to assist
you in fully embracing your calling as a disciple of Jesus
– to make disciples for Christ in your Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

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Who doesn’t want to change the world?

Funny thing: When I was in college, we thought we were a revolutionary generation and were
sure that the world would be changed with our efforts—not just changed, fixed! Now I hear
the same thoughts from younger generations. Evidently my generation didn’t do so well on
our watch.

Underlying this desire is a sense that there is something wrong. Exactly! The Christian under-
standing is that there is indeed something wrong. We read in Genesis that our race fell and
fractured the world. It’s now a fun house of mirrors that reflect distorted and even grotesque
images. The world we now experience is both funny and tragic. We need a “fixer;” in religious
terms, a “savior.”

As Christians we believe that Jesus Christ is that “fixer/savior.” Jesus, by means of his death,
resurrection, and ascension, has addressed the fundamental problem, sin, and now his fixing/
saving work is moving forward to consummate that renewed world in which all is as it is sup-
posed to be.

My desire to see the world fixed—myself included—is a constantly fresh source of love for Jesus
Christ and for his church. I haven’t always loved the church. At one time I considered it irrel-
evant, old fashioned, and a source of worldwide conflict. After the summons of Jesus to believe,
I discovered the church as a place of care and inspiration; I had to set aside my prejudices. Now
I believe that the church is the means of changing/fixing the world, and I count it a privilege to
be a part of the community and to be a part of its mission.

The word church brings up a variety of images, thoughts, and feelings. Perhaps you think of the
church as a place where you go to worship on Sunday; perhaps it’s a white colonial building
with columns or a stone gothic edifice or a ramshackle wooden building out in the country.
The church in which I serve was built in the sixties with jalousie windows and linoleum tile; we
are currently updating it! Our church is quite nervous about the huge box church several miles
away. It was once a Home Depot and has been renovated to accommodate thousands.

Maybe you think about people when you think about the church. When I look out on Sunday
mornings, I see pews filled with mostly gray-haired people who wear suits or nice clothes. Our
congregation is nervous about that bigger church where one sees few gray hairs and dress is casu-
al. Maybe you have warm feelings that bring back childhood memories of Sunday school. Maybe
you have bitter feelings as you think about the preacher who ran off with somebody on staff.

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Whatever you see or think about when you hear the word church, it most likely isn’t big or rich
enough to accommodate God’s picture and purposes for the church. If you are to take your place
in God’s work of changing/fixing the world, your thoughts of the church need to be stretched.

John Stott notes that:

The church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine
afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God’s
new community. For his purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in
history and to be perfected in a future eternity, it is not just to save isolated individu-
als and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build his church, that is to call out
of the world a people for his own glory.1

What would an expanding vision of the church look like? In the book of Acts, and elsewhere
in the New Testament, I see that a vision of the church includes the following themes: (1) the
community of Jesus Christ, (2) the community of the Holy Spirit, (3) a missional community,
(4) a redemptive community, (5) a learning community, (6) a worshiping community, and (7)
a heavenly community.

The Community of Jesus Christ

Jesus creates the church, is the center of the church, and has a purpose—a mission—for the
church.

The Greek word for church is ecclesia. It means the “called out ones.” As described in the New
Testament, the church is composed of those who have been called out of the former way of life
and are called into close relationship with Jesus Christ.

I used to picture the church as a huge room filled with people. Jesus was way up at the front; I
could hardly see him. Everyone was facing forward and didn’t even know that I had slipped into
the vacant seat in the back row. It is strange that I thought that way, because it does not reflect
my experience or theology. I had a clear sense of call when I entered the Faith. The first disciples
were called; all that join the church thereafter are called as well (Eph. 1:4–5, 11–13). Jesus has a
seat, not at the back of the church but right up front, with our name on it. It is a seat of honor.
He knows we are there. He has put us there. The church is Jesus’ church, and every single one
of us is there for his purposes.

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The Community of the Spirit

Jesus rose from the dead and for forty days taught the disciples, commissioning them to be his
witnesses as the next phase of fixing/saving the world (Acts 1). Their mission was not to com-
mence until he sent them the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ gift of the Spirit to the church at the feast of
Pentecost endued his church with supernatural power and gifts. Both the gifts of the Spirit and
the fruit of the Spirit are present throughout the letters to the first churches (Rom. 12; 1 Cor.
12–14; Eph. 4:12–14).

Since biblical times this spiritual and supernatural nature of the church has frequently become
obscured. Annie Dillard observed that on a given Sunday morning ushers pass out bulletins to
sleepy people who shuffle to their seats; if people knew what the church was really about, ushers
would be passing out crash helmets and life jackets!

Some churches, notably Pentecostal and charismatic, are more aware of this supernatural na-
ture of the church than others. I am a Presbyterian, and our commitment to doing all things
“decently and in order” keeps us from being eager for dramatic manifestations of the Spirit. It’s
a good thing that the Holy Spirit is not limited to the spontaneous and spectacular. The fruit
of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, etc. (Gal. 5:22–23)—are character traits. The gifts of the Spirit
include acts of compassion and mercy, teaching, and even administration. I find it interesting
that two of the most Spirit-anointed people in the Scriptures were Joseph in Egypt and Daniel
in Babylon, indisputably world-class administrators. We Presbyterians like that.

So is it spectacular spontaneous manifestations or orderly conduct? What really marks a church

in which the Spirit is present? If we take the birth and growth of the church as our standard, it
is when there is something within the church that spills out the windows and doors, flows down
the street, and infects people with the life of Jesus Christ.

A Missional Community
The arrival of the Holy Spirit brought a celestial sound and light show (Acts 2:1–13). The
church’s worldwide growth that began here spread throughout the Roman Empire and has
continued to grow, through all of time into all cultures and languages. Jesus expected that his
church would grow, and it has. Jesus, Lord of the Church, is behind it all. What amazes the
people visiting Jerusalem at Pentecost was not just the sights and sounds but this: “Are not all
these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own
native language?” (2:7–8).2

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The gift of the Spirit brings the reversal of the Tower of Babel, described in Genesis 11. The
community of Jesus Christ, the Spirit-filled community, is the beginning of God’s new society
that will experience the removal of the curse—a community moving away from chaos.

The gift of the Spirit means that the message of Jesus is “translatable.” The gospel can be spoken
into the language, even the “heart-language,” of any people group, culture, or country. This
translatability means that mission of Jesus Christ doesn’t need to be restricted to some autho-
rized version, whether it be the Greek, the Latin Vulgate, the King James...

Missional is the word used since the 1990s to clarify the centrality of mission in a world that has
become post-Christian. The word missions had been used in the nineteenth century to focus the
established church beyond the horizons of Christianized Europe and America. Mission is what
people did if they left their home country and went “over there,” to darkest Africa, India, China,
etc. Now that the secularized movement of the Christianized nations has resulted in “post-
Christendom,” the church on every block in every community is engaged in mission—not “over
there” but “right here.” This missional emphasis is leading to all kinds of creative and innovative
ministries, some of which the more traditional churches find questionable. The missional task
of the church today is moving from being a religious institution in a Christian culture to being
a converting community in a post-Christian culture.

A Redemptive Community
Peter preached his first sermon (Acts 2:14–41), and three thousand people were added to the
church. The church went about incorporating those first converts and continued to grow. Their
activities included the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer (2:42).

As a redemptive community, the church is a community of the saved. It is also a saving com-
munity. Converts experience salvation by participating in the life of the church. In spite of
my many misconceptions, prejudices, and emotional needs, a little Baptist church in Florida
welcomed me “home.” That is, I was invited to homes for dinner and generally loved on. They
taught me, nourished me, and put up with me. Immersed in their expressions of the love of
God, I learned to believe, and my character began to develop. Hospitality and incorporation,
then, are marks of a redemptive community. As we are engaged in mission, we not only “go and
tell,” but we also invite to “come and see.”

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A Learning Community
The first converts “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). Education is an
essential ministry, as converts need to learn how to think and act as followers of Jesus Christ
should; it does not come naturally. Jesus makes teaching central to mission. We see this in his
Great Commission, in which he instructs disciples, “... teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). The apostle Paul articulates the educational mission/ministry
of the church: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).

The church from that time to this has placed a high value on education. Those who sought to
join the church attended classes twice a week for three years before they were allowed to be bap-
tized. There were many great teachers in the first centuries of the church, Augustine of Hippo
(d. 430) being the undisputed greatest. When Christianity was illegal and persecuted, one rea-
son the church prevailed was that it “out-thought the pagans.”

The high value of education of the mission/ministry of the church can be traced through the
creation of the great universities and public and parochial school systems of Europe and the
United States as well as the mission schools of Asia and Africa.

Our little church is attempting to recover the value of education. We have a Bible study or two
available every day. The pastors’ activities, which include counseling and administration, now
include teaching in small groups and larger classes. In a secularizing culture, Bible illiteracy is on
the rise, and there is a corresponding loss of a Christian mind and character. If the church does
not excel as a learning community, we too may be secularized!

A Worshiping Community
Another of the essential activities of those first converts was worship. They prayed together (Acts
2:42); they also met together in the temple courts (2:46) and even in their homes, praising God
(2:47).

Worship was and remains a central focus of the church. Worshiping God is what the church
does. A church wouldn’t be a church if it didn’t worship. The Protestant churches I am in touch
with have one worship focus a week: Sunday morning with at least one service and maybe more.
A few have a worship service in the evening, but not many. There are times when I envy Catholic
churches in which it is common to have a daily worship service.

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Worship is not generally conceived as an act of mission, but it is. We are created and converted
so that we can, in the words of the Westminster Catechism, “Glorify God and enjoy him for-
ever.” During the Dark and early Middle Ages, monks and missionaries used worship as a means
of reaching the Norsemen, Frisians, and uncivilized invaders. This missional aspect of worship
was rediscovered by the “seeker church” in the 1980s. Sunday morning became a primary means
of outreach to those drawn by the rays of the church’s light.

I have been in churches where people attended worship, and I have been in churches where
people worshiped. There is a difference. The way the hymns are sung, the sermon is heard, and
God is engaged is noticeably different. The biblical account of the first church indicates that
people were enthusiastically engaged in worship, in the temple, in the homes, in various ways.
As a worshiping community was central then, it is essential now.

A Heavenly Community
While the church on earth is moving through time, it is confined to neither time nor space, for
that matter. In Christ, death does not terminate life or membership in the church. In Christ,
death is not a barrier nor a cul-de-sac but a bridge into another side of existence.

Robert Markus, a historian of the early church, notes that early Christians knew that:

They were pilgrims in this world, aliens in the society of their pagan fellows, but
they knew they were part of a vast community which is now traveling on its jour-
ney, to join that heavenly church … The worshiping community here on earth was
an outlying colony, its prayer a distant echo of the perfect and unceasing praise of-
fered to God in heaven by his angels and his saints. It was especially in its worship
that the apparent distance between the earthly and the heavenly community was
bridged.3

In considering the church on earth and in heaven, it is common to speak about the visible and
invisible church. The visible is the church we can see; the invisible church includes those we can
see and those in heaven we can’t see. The church on earth is still engaged in spiritual warfare—
the church militant. The church in heaven is the church triumphant. In heaven, the mission of
the church is complete as it wholeheartedly enters in a worship that we have only tasted here. In
an unrestrained manner they are “glorifying and enjoying God forever.”

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The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of that heavenly community at worship.

“Day and night they never stop saying:

‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty
who was, and is, and is to come.” (4:8)

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God

to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.’” (4:11)

The Celtic Christians used to speak of “thin places;” that is, places where the membrane, the
veil, between heaven and earth was thin, where it was possible to see and hear the sights and
sounds of the heaven shining through. I have found worshiping churches to be such thin
places. I hear more music than the choir makes and hear words in sermons that resonate with
a depth beyond the skill of the pastor.

Conclusion
If we think of the church as a building, a meeting, a series of activities, or a group of people
with gray or not-so-gray hair, our experience of church could be enriched if we were to expand
our vision of the church to stretch back to the first believers in Acts or outward to the brothers
and sisters in heaven.

We are part of a vast community that stretches through the ages and extends into eternity. We
have an important role, as we are the means by which God is breaking down the barriers be-
tween heaven and earth. God is renewing and restoring his creation as we believe and obey his
Son. Talk about changing the world—we get to be in the action!

Fallen Age Church New Creation

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But of course there is a question: If Jesus really did fix/save the world and church is the commu-
nity of the fixed/saved, then why is the world still the way it is? Wait, there is more! The church
lives in the intersection of two ages. The Fallen Age has not yet been abolished, but the New
Creation, the kingdom of heaven, is begun.

The church, as the agent of Jesus Christ, has the essential task to bear witness (Acts 1:8) to
what is and will one day be. Saints, in the early centuries, were men and women who made the
world to come seem present. At present, we are part of the church militant, and we are engaged
in battles inside us, and in our culture, by forces seen and unseen. More often than we like, it
seems that we are retreating rather than advancing. Despite appearances, we, the church of Jesus
Christ, are God’s agents for fixing/saving the world. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”! (Rev. 22:20
KJV).

Notes
1
John Stott, The Living Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 19.
2
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, 1984.
Robert Markus, Rome to the Barbarian Kingdoms in John McManners, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Chris-
3

tianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 73.

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