The Church’s Task in the World

Editors’ note:

This video series is based on Conrad Mbewe’s book, God’s Design for the Church. In partnership with RightNow Media Africa, we’re exploring what the Bible teaches about the Church’s mission. To supplement these videos we’ll provide related articles and book reviews that dig deeper into God’s calling for the local churches and the individual believers within them. So why don’t you watch and read along as we journey together towards a clearer and more compelling vision for the Church?

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This is the second video in our series delivered by Conrad Mbewe on God’s Design for the Church—some readers will be familiar with the book by Mbewe, with that same title. In this video, we consider the task God has given his Church. Throughout the video then, Mbewe considers one critical question. It’s a question every church leader and pastor must ask. What is the task of the Church?

As Mbewe reminds us, just as a president, soldier, or politician must understand their calling or task, the same is true for both church leaders and members. Critically, Mbewe says that as we do this we’ll realise that the local church isn’t “there to serve me,” but that “it is actually the other way around.” In other words, when we understand what the Bible teaches about the mission and task of the Church, it corrects the prevalent consumeristic approach that many take to the Church.

The Church is there as a place where I can participate with others in order to achieve an external mission.

Mbewe points us back to Jesus’s words in Matthew 28, the Great Commission. Here we learn that the task of the Church is to go and make disciples of all nations. It must baptise and teach obedience to all that Christ has commanded. Furthermore, Mbewe says, “The Church is there as a place where I can participate with others in order to achieve an external mission.” The Church’s task in the world isn’t restricted to its leaders. All believers can participate. The Church’s true, God-given mission is evangelism, discipleship, and raising up true worshippers of the living God.

Other Content On This Topic

Three Traits of a Church That Glorifies God
Ephesians 3: The Church Doesn’t Exist for You
Jesus’ Disciples Served the People First, Not Themselves
To Flourish You Must Grasp God’s Big Story

Transcript

Clarifying the mission of the Church

One of the important issues to settle in our minds if we’re going to lead the church properly is simply the question, what is the task of the church? Because anybody who is in leadership position over any institution in the world needs to be clear – what is the mission for this enterprise that is now on my hands.

So, for instance if you’re a President of a nation, you need to be clear that the state is there for the protection of those who are citizens. You give them security. You give them safety so that they can flourish. If you are a person who is leading the army, you know that it is to keep the whole nation secure from external aggression or maybe you are a politician. You again realize I am of a constituency. I need to see to its development and so forth. Well, it’s the same thing with being a leader of the church. You need to ask yourself the question, what is the Church there for?

Misconceptions About the Church

Now sadly a lot of individuals view the church as a place for social activities. It is a place the community comes together to have a nice time. The children are having a nice time. The youths are having a nice time. The women are also gathered together feeling that there’s a place they come to also enjoy themselves. And so, in the end it becomes a place for entertainment which ought not to be the case. Well, other people see the church as a place they come to have their needs met in terms of financial needs, in terms of their own difficulties in life to do with perhaps sorrow and grief and so forth.

So, they again see the Church with the mindset that the pastor and the leaders are there to meet my physical and emotional needs. Again, I say that’s not the reason why the Church was put into place. And we need to shift from the consumer mentality – from thinking that the Church is there to serve me. It is actually the other way around. The Church is there as a place where I can participate with others in order to achieve an external mission.

The Great Commission: The Church’s True Task

What is that? Well, thankfully the head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave the Church its marching orders in what is referred to as the great commission. It is found in all the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But let me take you to the quote that is there in Matthew and chapter 28. The Bible says there in verse 18, Matthew 28:18-19, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” These were the instructions that were given by the head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, after his life on earth, having died and having been raised to life again. And he was giving it to his apostles, those that were called to lead the Church, to lay the foundation for the Church so that the church may never depart from its task.

And I want you to notice that among the tasks first of all is that of evangelism and missions. The Lord Jesus Christ said go and make disciples of all nations. And strictly speaking in the Greek it is going make disciples of all nations. In other words, the church is to see itself as an institution that is ever on the move. Reaching out to the immediate neighbourhood, reaching out to its city, reaching out to its nation, reaching out to the continent where it is, and reaching out even further afield. And that’s the reason why you would have noticed that although the church began within the context of Jerusalem, it wasn’t long before it went to Judea, it went to Samaria, it went to the uttermost parts of the earth. It is in the DNA of the task of the church. And what is the church going to be doing there? It is basically sharing the good news, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The message that God once upon a time may have left the tribes and the nations to themselves as they were feeling their way in search for God. But now he has revealed himself in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the second person of the trinity. God the son. He has shown us who God is. And this message is not to be maintained only in the context of Israel, but it is now to go to the ends of the world.

That is our task as a Christian Church. We are to make sure that this message is being heard further and further afield. It is a matter that is of great concern to me and to those who see the way in which the church is going over the centuries, that although the church is now largely planted within the context of Africa, we are missing a golden opportunity in terms of being mission minded. For some reason, we still think that our role is that of receiving missionaries from other continents. Instead of seeing that because the church has been firmly established in the context of this continent, we must now see ourselves as receiving the button and beginning to run with it. We must take the gospel as churches within Africa further afield; we must take the gospel across the continent and even across the globe. Well, that’s one responsibility that we see of the church.

The next one is to ensure that those who come to Christ through repentance and faith are initiated into these colonies of faith that we refer to as local churches. And that’s what we heard in the great commission with the words that, ” … make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, bringing them under shepherds. Shepherds who are to watch over their lives. So, we must never be content with merely evangelizing and leaving people there. We must seek to bring them into these colonies of faith that we refer to as local churches.

Discipleship and Instruction in God’s Word

And then thirdly and lastly, it is our responsibility to make sure that believers who are meeting therefore in these places are instructed in the ways of God. Which is exactly what we heard from the great commission – ” … baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe or to obey everything I have commanded you.” We must never be satisfied with simply evangelism. We must ensure that God’s people are being discipled. That they are learning how Jesus wants them to live as individuals. How they are to be as husbands and wives who are Christians. How they are to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. How they are to ensure that out there they are living lives that set them apart from the rest of the world so that Christians can be salt and light in the world following the mind of Jesus instead of simply continuing in the errors that might be embedded in their society.

That is the role of the church. And that’s the reason why the church gathers together regularly. It’s not to be entertained, but to be instructed from the Bible, from the word of God, so that when they get out there to live their lives out in the community and the society, the world may see the way God wants them to live because they are seeing it in Christians. So that people may know that God wants them to abandon their sin and come to repentance and faith in Christ. That they too might become worshippers of the living God, surrendering their everything to the Lord Jesus Christ as saviour and lord. The church has a mission in the world. It is not to entertain us. It’s not as a mere social club. It is so that we might take the message of Jesus to the world. And as people get converted, they come in as true worshippers of the living God in Jesus Christ.

Conrad Mbewe is the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia and is a Council member of The Gospel Coalition Africa. Conrad is the Founding Chancellor the African Christian University in Lusaka and currently serves as the Dean of the School of Divinity at ACU. He and his wife, Felistas, have six adult children.