The Agenda of the Church

To The Editor:

These are not my words, rather they are paraphrased from Tony Evans:

The agenda of the church? Our society is not changing for the good today. Why? Because the church has settled for buildings and programs instead of accessing the authority of the kingdom and power of the Holy Spirit. We’ve had church services, but we haven’t had transformation. Unless the church becomes spirit-filled and kingdom minded, we are not being the church that Christ came to build. In act, Jesus only mentioned “church” in his earthly ministry three times, and all three times are recorded in the kingdom focused book of Matthew. The word “kingdom” by contrast is found 54 times in Matthew alone.

Yet, surprisingly, we often hear more about the church than the kingdom. Our seminaries teach our future leaders how to do church rather than being about the kingdom. We ought to focus on both the kingdom and church because they are interconnected. We can’t have church without the kingdom; the kingdom carries out its agenda through the church.

It is high time we become kingdom people representing bigger than our own individual preferences. It is time we made God’s kingdom our rule and his glory our goal. God did not establish the church to make us feel good.

The failure to recognize this broader agenda has kept churches ingrown, divided and fragmented Until the church begins functioning for the kingdom rather than merely for itself, it cannot have the vice and the comprehensive impact it was created to have in areas such as social justice, race relations, economics, education and government.

Jim Howse

La Grange