Why does your congregation exist? What is it’s desired outcome? What is it trying to accomplish?

By Bishop Alexander Pryor

Local churches are—and should be—many things to many people: a haven for those seeking community; a place where gifts and talents are offered to God’s glory and for the good of others; a school of discipleship for the next generation of leaders and faithful members. They should be a hospital for sinners, where we learn together how to live in the midst of a broken and tangled world. They should be a weird and wonderful gathering of the most unlikely people, knit together first and foremost by our unity as those washed in Christ’s blood. And, no less important, the parish church is meant to be a mission outpost on the frontier of the world—the place where the Kingdom of God stubbornly and steadfastly breaks into the surrounding community to bring the hope, healing, and forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. I know that all sounds grand, perhaps even a little romantic. I also know the very practical, day-to-day work required to keep a church going: paying bills, fixing the roof, finding someone to open the doors and lead prayers when the minister is away, searching high and low for someone—anyone!—willing to be the second adult on site so Sunday School or youth group can happen.

Those practical things matter. But they are not why the Church exists.

Distractions are easy to come by, and many of the things that distract us from our God-given mission are not bad things at all. There is nothing wrong with maintaining the roof. Planning services and running youth group are good and holy work. But as we come to terms with our place in today’s world, we must be brutally honest about why we exist. I know this is an unpopular thing to say in the middle of a heated vestry discussion about deferred maintenance, but as a bishop charged with guarding and directing the mission Christ gave to the apostles, I sometimes have to say what no one wants to hear: “Why will you need a roof, if this congregation won’t be here making disciples under it?” One of the most important things I have learned from working alongside my Inuit colleagues is the importance of being “outcome-based”. In the North, where resources are scarce and logistics are complex, things worth doing require planning and real effort. The most efficient way to discern whether something is worth doing is to ask a simple question: why are we doing this?

I’ve come to expect the long pause that follows when I ask a vestry, “Why does this congregation exist?” I’ve also come to expect some frustration when I push back against good-but-not-quite-good-enough answers that focus on maintaining worthwhile and even holy things, yet fall short of the vision Christ gave the Church in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20). The desired outcome of a local church is to accomplish Christ’s mission, to the glory of God the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Period. The challenge and the opportunity is to keep that outcome front and centre as every other decision and plan follows.

Do we need to train new lay leaders? …Well… maybe.
The real question is why.
If we need lay leaders simply because the 11 a.m. hour on Sunday morning is sacrosanct, or because we cannot imagine a future where no one unlocks the doors and rings the bell while the rest of the world sleeps in, then our mission needs refocusing. That may sound dramatic. But, less dramatic is the honest concern that vestries and those in the pews sometimes raise: “Who will do our funerals when we die?”

Pastorally and emotionally, that is a real and valid concern. But we owe it to ourselves to press the question further, for the sake of the mission we have interited. Has God preserved the Church in the western world to this day simply so that we can ring the bell or bury the dead? I will spare you from a repetition of the words of Jesus that likely comes to mind (Luke 9:60)!
Yes, we need a new generation of clergy and lay leaders. Yes, we need to lovingly maintain, improve, or replace the buildings we have inherited. Yes, we need to gather on Sundays, offer Sunday School, and devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers (Acts 2:42).
But always, we must ask: why?
What is the outcome? None of these things is an end in itself.

I am learning—often the hard and frustrating way—to test every decision against the mission we have been given by Christ. Yes, the women’s sewing group is a good thing—but how does it serve the Great Commission? How does it work toward accomplishing the mission for which we exist? Is it a safe and welcoming entry point where people in the community meet Christians and are being invited into the fellowship of Christ? If so, thanks be to God. If not, that does not make it bad—but it cannot be a priority, and it cannot be the deciding factor in any decisions that are made. To quote Tod Bolsinger, “the mission always wins” in any debate or decision. The photo on the left is the old church in Kuujjuaq. It was condemned years ago. The photo in the center is the current church in Kuujjuaq – and most importantly, it is filled with joyful faces gathered to grow as disciples of Jesus! The photo on the right is the church in Umiujaq, which has also been condemned as the roof is no longer structurally sound. Of course people want to see a new church built, but now the community is beginning the work of asking the question “why do we need a church, and what will we do differently than before, to accomplish Christ’s mission to the glory of God?”

The local church can and should be many things to many different people. There is important socially-focused and poverty-relief and justice-oriented work that is done, and it is a much-needed central place for people to come together and exercise their gifts in so many rural communities. But, when faced with the decisions of leadership and planning for the next generation, are those things why we exist? Are those things the reason the Lord has preserved the Church to our own day? “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” That is the outcome Christ gave us. Keep that mission before money and maintenance. And let’s be bold and brutally blunt enough to ask the question, even about the things we hold most dear: why do we exist, and what is our outcome? And let’s never forget the promise that accompanies the mission: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”