“Arctic people are “outcome-based” people.” This was one of the first and biggest things that I had to learn when I began writing lessons and preaching in the North. University-educated southerners are trained to hint at your goal, but save it until the end of your message – your conclusion, the final paragraph, where you tie together everything that has been said. Not so with most Northerners I’ve met. Following their lead, the first question I now keep in mind is “what’s the desired outcome?”. What’s the purpose of this gathering? With so many other demands that go with day-to-day life – from filling the freezer to raising kids to carrying out many duties around town – we want to know what it is we are gathered to do, and why we are gathered to do it. Then we can talk about why it is necessary, or how it might work, or what the options might be. It makes me wonder: what’s the desired outcome – the purpose – driving much of the church in the Western world?

As progressive theologies and modern ideas about forming our own self-actualized identities and simply “doing good” have crowded out the Great Commission and the message of the gospel, I can look back over my 37 years and see a wider church that is in search of a purpose, not sure why it exists. Yes, there are ideas and initiatives that spring up from time to time to encourage “church growth”, but, for those in my generation, all we’ve ever known is statistics of doom and gloom about the decline of “mainline Christianity”. Many enterprising and entrepreneureal leaders have tried their hand to bring about whatever bright or shiny “new thing” that they think the Lord might be doing. To me it seems that in itself is proof that too many have lost sight of why we exist. When the Church stops producing fruit and goes into decline, it’s only human to search about, looking for something to grab on to, some purpose to give meaning to what’s left of our group. We have lands, we have buildings, we have some people who like each other, so we latch on to social housing projects, or soup kitchens, or knitting circles, or traditional on-the-land healing camps, or all sorts of other things – many of them good. But, when do we step back and ask the question: what is our desired outcome? If we are the church, what is our purpose? Is it just to do some good, just to continue to keep the doors open and the lights on, just to “do what we’ve always done”? I was struck this week in reading Ezekiel 15 at morning prayer. It’s tremendously short, well worth a quick read. In it, the Lord speaks about purpose, using the image of a grapevine. This is a common image throughout scripture – in other places God’s chosen people are described as a fruitful vineyard that God protects, weeds, prunes, and waters in love; Jesus says that we are the fruit-bearing branches on the vine. But stop to think about it. What is the outcome of planting a vineyard? Or bolder yet, what is the purpose of a vine?

What is the purpose of the Church? What is the desired outcome of the Body of Christ in the world? It is to make believers, teaching and training disciples as we ourselves as discipled, bearing much kingdom fruit for the glory of God. When the church has buildings, and money, and people, and influence, and all the rest, it can only be for one purpose: to fulfil the Great Commission. Yes, Christians will faithful and cheerfully do that in all sorts of ways! As you read in these pages, feeding programs and healing programs and youth work and all the rest is an essential part of fulfilling that mission. But that’s the difference: it flows out of a clear sense of mission, a shared purpose, a desired outcome, handed down from Christ Himself. It’s when we lose sight of this purpose that the Church goes wonky. This God-given idea of “Church” – many joined togehter as one, just doesn’t work for any other purpose. The Lord already did His “new thing” – the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood! May the Lord draw us together in unity of purpose, and all for His glory, now and forevermore. Amen.