God has a mission. God’s mission is to redeem a broken
creation, broken as a result of sin and disobedience. He has done this through
the life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus and through the gift of
the Spirit to God’s people. And He has done all this in order to bring creation
back into its perfect order. Of course, I speak here of God’s final Kingdom,
but the challenge of God’s people is to
live into that kingdom now. That is God’s mission, and because God has a
mission, there is a church. Because God
has a mission, there is the local church.
Therefore, it follows that the church exists for mission.
Mission is to the church what flames are to the fire … no flames, no fire. No
mission, no church. What is our mission? Our mission must be to align with
God’s mission. And what is God’s mission?