People have been doing church for 2000 years. And many people within the church have been doing it their whole life. In fact, some people have done church so long they could do it in their sleep (and many have, while listening to me preach).  But for all the years Christianity has been doing church, and individuals have been a part—what is the point, the purpose, the core of church? What is its mission? For all our time spent in churches, have we answered these most basic questions about its identity?

On the whole, I don’t think we have. And I guess I should have asked those questions before I decided to go to Bible College to train as a pastor. But I didn’t.

Our culture has rightly called us out on the carpet. Today, everyone outside the church has answers for what the corporate church is—a money-making machine, the place where men sing of their strange love for another man, where the self-righteous go to pat their own back. So with all these supposed-misconceptions, how are we Christians supposed to respond?

For many years within Christianity, we saw the church merely as the group of people who are “saved” and are about getting other people “saved.” Church was about growth, about evangelism, about saving the “lost.” Many people outside the church didn’t feel lost, but we decided to call them that to their face anyway.

And many churches grew, and many people were found. But for what? Does this whole Christianity thing end when you get saved? Is the rest of our time on Earth supposed to be spent twiddling our thumbs while we wait to contract some terminal illness that will take us to Heaven?

In Bible college, sometimes we read the Bible. When I would read the Gospels, I was struck with the ministry of Jesus. He healed people, He gave incredibly bold teachings about life, and He was a general nuisance to the religious people of His day. He spoke of a Kingdom that would come in the future, God’s Kingdom, a Kingdom that was very different than the kingdoms of the world. It redefined what success was, what power was, and what meaning was. And Jesus said it wasn’t just something for the future; it was something that had come with His arrival.

What a minute. I thought Jesus came to die on the cross and make us “saved.” Wait, wait, wait, hold-the-phone—he actually did stuff? He actually asked us to do stuff? This wasn’t my momma’s Jesus. This wasn’t my church’s Jesus.

This Jesus of Scripture was calling people not only into a right relationship with God and salvation, but to a life of service in God’s Kingdom. He was calling people to be a part of God’s community, the church, and bring a taste of His Kingdom to earth. It was to be a community of God’s people based on God’s values, and God’s heart.

As Christians, we are God’s people on a mission for Him. And that mission is to create communities that bring God’s Kingdom into every context we encounter. Life isn’t about waiting to die, it’s about bringing life everywhere we go—as God’s ambassadors, we bring a taste of Heaven to Earth.

Your will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.