A church for God

What is church for? For worship? For fellowship? For building up a community? For serving the parish? Personally, I think it should be all three.

If a church only comes together for worship, how does the congregation build up fellowship with each other? Through that fellowship, they can support and sustain one another. They can share their stories of faith and live - and how the two are intermingled.

If there is no fellowship, how can a community be built? A community knows the individuals within it - their relationships with others within the community. They can love each other love, as Christ loved his disciples. Their worship can inform their community and their community can inform their worship and service.

If a church does not serve the parish. If those in the parish need to ask 'which church is that?' and don't really know anything about the church, is a church doing its 'job' right? Jesus calls us to serve the least among us. I do not believe that is merely within the church community, but the wider parish community itself. How that occurs varies from church to church, town to town, region to region, based on the skills and theology of the congregation, the neighbouring churches (and the churches relationship to one another), the facilities the church building has, etc. But I do believe that, one way or another, the church should be known and respected and seen to serve and love its community.

For in our service, in our fellowship and our worship we should be praising God and showing God's love to the world.