The Church's Responsibility - All of the Above

I came across a poll the other week over at Christianity Today. It struck me as really interesting, if only for the way the poll was worded and the options:

Christianity Today Poll:

What is a church's most important responsibility to attendees?

• Helping non-Christians find Christ.
• Leading in worship.
• Developing mature believers.
• Gathering people for fellowship.
• Administering sacraments.
• Outlining Christian beliefs.

Wow! I found this a tough, really tough, poll. The problem was in its wording. Look at it again:

What is a church's most important responsibility to attendees?

There is the question and then a qualifier. What is the church's most important responsibility? That leads perhaps to one answer.

What is a church's most important responsibility to attendees? Ah, perhaps that's a different one, especially since "attendee" may most often describe those attending worship.

Then there's the fact that the answers offered never say that the most important responsibility is to "be like Jesus" or "be the living witness to Christ" or any of the things mentioned by Jesus when he read the prophets at the Synagogue in Nazareth or his famous listing of what separates the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25. "Ministry" is not included in that list, or at least "ministry" as most of us were trained in it for most of the last couple generations of American clergy. Neither is "mission" in the very deep and broad sense of the word from foreign fields to local neighborhoods.

And the key to that may very well be found in the question's qualifier- "to its attendees." I had a difficult time answering it, but at least some others did not. Here's the results (Total Votes: 1323):

• Helping non-Christians find Christ 24%
• Leading in worship 6%
• Developing mature believers 54%
• Gathering people for fellowship 3%
  
• Administering sacraments 4%
  
• Outlining Christian beliefs 2%
  
• Other 5%
• I don't know 2%

A number of things actually surprised me about the results.

First, that "leading in worship" was such a very, very distant third at 6% and that "other" was close behind. (Although it is notable that "worship" and "sacraments" together were 10%. Perhaps those in more sacramental churches would put those two together.

Second, that "developing mature believers" was more than 50%. I am not sure what that means but I know that most churches have plenty of those opportunities and they aren't all that well attended.

Third, that the "evangelism" question about introducing new people to Christ was #1 did not surprise me- except it assumes that among a church's "attendees" are many who do not know Christ. Perhaps that is part of the "seeker-sensitive" movement of the last 15 - 20 years.


I honestly don't remember what I answered. With the qualifier of "attendees" I think I put either worship or sacraments. I didn't cop out with the "other" idea. So what would I answer? Well, I have an "other" to add:

To provide its attendees (members) the opportunity to be in mission with Jesus Christ in their lives and the world.

Or as I used to say it:

To make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

Yes, I know that this is a basket kind of answer that includes "all the above." But that is because I think that "all of the above" don't even come close to the answer and they set up a false choice, even a straw man choice. The church is the church not when you do one or some of these. The church is the church when it does all of the above in following Jesus.

Having been sitting on the "outside" of the church ministry working in the secular world for over 4 years I have come to the awareness that the "attendees" and "members" need all of these and more. We need the church to be the place where we are empowered to be like Jesus and to minister to Jesus wherever we find Him. We need the church to remind us of our missional calling and not be "attendees" but "disciples."

Unfortunately, the church as a whole doesn't seem to do that very well partly because it does try to prioritize "all of the above" instead of utilizing "all of the above" to carry out its one and only responsibility- to live as the Body of Christ.