Our fundamental purpose is to love one another. Our mission is to love the world. It is not to get more members. If more people join us because they see the value of what we are doing, if they see that what we believe actually bears fruit, if our faith is reflected in our works, then that is great – and with more members we will be able to do more. But our mission is not to build up the Church, it is to serve the world.

I know many are fearful that the Church as an institution is dying; numbers are declining, especially amongst the young. It is not everywhere as bad as we sometimes think – there are green shoots in places – but we would be blind not to realise that the Churches face enormous difficulties. But if the Church is to die, it must be because it has given itself for God’s world, not because it had been so concerned with its own survival that the world has found it irrelevant.

 To discover the reason for our choice of post title
read the whole of Jim Mein’s sermon at this link.