What???? What bible are you reading??? Read Paul's letters where he outlines church service. Is there any mention of an outward mission? Of course the shepherding of the sheep is the primary function of the church! Read the key verses today. Why did God give the church all of these great gifts? To equip the saints! For what? The work of ministry! What is the work of ministry? Building up the body of Christ! Is this a short-term endeavor followed by some outward mission? No! It continues until the unity of the faith is achieved as well as the knowledge of the Son of God. So the sheep can mature and reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we will no longer be tossed to and fro by false doctrine, human cunning, and the craftiness of deceitful schemes. This is how the body of Christ is grown and built up in love.
"Today, churches act much like hospitals. Their key function is to deal with the wounded. In reality, they should look more like MASH units! Soldiers who are wounded in the mission are quickly stitched up so they can get back to the war!
God is raising up people who want to get challenged, not fed. ~Isaiah Saldivar" -- John Burton
God is doing no such thing sir. If He were He would be violating His own word. Stop acting like being fed the word of God is a bad thing. Stop acting like saints desiring to move from milk to meat is a bad thing. It is far more challenging to work on our own lives and our own sin then to focus on the sins of others in your fake war. It is far more challenging to pick up our own cross and deny ourselves than to go into the mission field bleeding and armed with a pop gun. The church is neither a hospital or a MASH unit. Stop using carnal war analogies while you are at it. We are not Joel's end time army.
"Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
The nurturing, equipping process is important, but it is not the goal! Notice that the equipping is for a reason! To work! Additionally, we have every opportunity and responsibility to feed ourselves instead of relying fully on the church. Today there are countless teachings online, in books, on CD's and more. There is no excuse for any of us to rely on anybody else for our nourishment. We should not be showing up to the church empty waiting to be fed. We should arrive full and overflowing with the richness of the Word that we have fed ourselves with that week!" - John Burton
First of all, he left out the full context of this beautiful set of verses which I have already addressed. Secondly, he is right that equipping is not the goal; it is the means. The goal however is not some outward war. The work of ministry is the building up of the saints and even when fully built up it is not go out to some imaginary war but rather to attain unity in doctrine! That is the goal! Will some rise up to teach? Yes! will some raise up to pastor? Yes! will some rise up to do the apostolic work of missions and evangelism? Yes! But that is not everyone! Read the passage again! These people are the gifts God gives the church to mature it in doctrine. The bulk of the people are still sheep and they need a shepherd by definition.
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