PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH?

In this last assignment I think Horness introduced an issue that must be dealt with. Who is the Church for? If I were to try to synthesize it to two aspects, the church is responsible for teaching the word of God and for worshiping God as a body (Acts 2:42, Col, 3:15-17). The reason I bring this up is that the majority of Joe Horness’s arguments were based on whether newcomers would understand. When Horness writes, “In essence we tell newcomers, ‘learn my language and then I’ll describe God to you.’” My question, without trying to be callous, is so what if the newcomer doesn’t understand? He shouldn’t! He is not redeemed! It is not the role of the church to evangelize. If evangelizing happens along the way, AMEN! But that isn’t the goal. Horness pushes the idea of the church’s purpose in evangelizing when he pulls Mt. 5:14 out of context. At that point in Christ’s ministry he had not introduced the Church yet. Christ was speaking to the individual not to the church. I think that Horness confuses the role of the believer with the role of the Church. Even if we look historically, like Horness tries to by saying that hymns from history were written in an attempt to be relevant. Historically, the first church would NOT have been evangelistic in its institutional form (Gatherings as a group). I have no doubt the members were extremely evangelistical hence, we are here, but the first services were done in secret, not exactly seeker friendly is it? In conclusion, I believe there is no problem in choosing songs that are unknown or difficult to the unredeemed. Our traditions should not be based on the world as it is not our goal to be “contemporary” but worshipful, something the unredeemed has no possibility of being until he receives Christ. What then should we do? Feed true and sustaining meat to the church so that each can go out into the world as a city upon the hill and evangelize and then bring the newly redeemed to the church for discipleship.

Well those are my thoughts, unfortunately I really haven’t studied this area in depth so I would love some input!