I am one of those happy people who are enjoying Southern Cross’s recent attention on the Diocesan Mission.
It has been encouraging to read of people across the Diocese who are engaging their neighbours with the gospel in love.  But, in the process, I keep feeling unsettled by the way some of my brothers and sisters are speaking about ‘church’.
Even in the March 2004 issue, the rector of Newtown is quoted as saying that ‘church is always about looking outwards, rather than inwards’.  Now I don’t want to pick on that particular expression and it may be that, in its original context, I would wholeheartedly agree with the statement.  Moreover, I’m thrilled to learn about what is happening in the heart of Newtown in the name of Jesus.  But I do want to think hard about what church is really ‘about’.
As I read the New Testament it seems to me that church is first and foremost the fruit of God’s mission.  It is not, primarily, the agent of God’s mission.
The church does not exist for the sake of those who are yet to join (as I’m sure I’ve heard people say).  Rather it exists because God has called people to belong to himself through his gospel –  it exists that they might enjoy what God has saved them into.
God didn’t invent church so that he’d have a way to win the nations.  He invented church because he has been winning the nations since the starry night he first spoke to Abraham until now.
Church is not primarily a means to an end.  It will be, and to some extent it is, the end itself.  Church is that rich and precious reality which we revel in when the work of mission has already been faithfully undertaken and it has borne fruit.

Now let me reassure you. I believe that Christians ought to share God’s heart for the lost.  I believe that God’s passionate desire is that all people come to submit to his Son and Christians do well to work to that end.  I believe that churches ought to be an attractive advertisement for the gospel they preach.  I believe that church is not merely to be enjoyed but that with the privilege of church comes the responsibility to build up the church.
I am also happy to assure you that I’m praying with great expectation that the vision of our Diocese might be realised under God’s good hand.  It’s just that, along the way, I don’t want us to get confused about the place of church – what church is ‘about’.
I don’t want us to expect that pastors be evangelists/church planters before they’re shepherds of the sheep.
I don’t want us to insist that church members be labourers without also being joyful recipients of God’s rich blessings.  It seems to me that they’re the kind of areas where a foggy understanding of church will have an impact.  I don’t want our churches to confuse kingdom priorities with a reason for being.  I think the Bible teaches this:  that Church is a gift more than a strategy. What do others think?
The Rev Simon Flinders is an assistant minister at St Thomas’, North Sydney.