Shallow Ecclesiology

“Our first responsibility is not to make converts but to uphold the honor of God in a world given over to the glory of fallen man.”
A. W. Tozer

“Evangelism isn’t the ultimate goal of the church: worship is. Evangelism exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not evangelism.”
Burk Parsons

“Worship provides the motivation for evangelism. It produces a desire in us to tell others about Christ.”
Rick Warren

“Passionate worship always leads to personal witness. Always. And what that means is... if we’re not witnessing, there’s a problem with our worship. We’re not seeing God for who He is! We’re not realizing what He’s done!”
David Platt

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
John Piper

“Simple assent to the gospel, divorced from a transforming commitment to the living Christ, is by Biblical standards less than faith, and less than saving.”
J. I. Packer

“We have two instructions of Jesus – a great commandment ... and a great commission ... Some of us behave as if we thought them identical.”
John Stott

The modern church is in crisis—not because it lacks numbers, not because it struggles to fill its chairs, but because it has forgotten why it exists. There are a growing number of voices who insist that the sole purpose of the church, its only mandate, is to seek and save the lost. Any focus or sermons on doctrine, worship, holiness, or discipleship is almost deemed unnecessary. In the words of William Temple, “The Church exists for the benefit of the world” (Christianity and Social Order, 1942). Is Temple’s statement, so often quoted, a complete one? Is the church’s existence justified only by its outreach efforts, or has this reductionist view of the church’s mission stripped it of its very identity?
C. S. Lewis wrote something that sounds similar, but notice his sharper edge: “The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.” The difference matters. Lewis makes it explicit: not merely drawing in, but transformation into Christlikeness. Not benefit, but rebirth. Not social service, but sanctification. The church’s existence is not justified only by its outreach efforts, but by the reality that it is the place where God forms His people into the image of His Son. To strip that away is to strip the church of its very identity.

A Biblical Definition of the Church
Correct theology teaches that the church is not a human invention; it is the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23), the dwelling place of God (Ephesians 2:21-22), the pillar and buttress of truth (1 Timothy 3:15), His bride (Revelation 19:7), and His flock (John 10:14-16). The church is not a social club, a charity, or a recruitment center, it is a holy people called out by God (1 Peter 2:9) for His glory. To say that the church exists only to seek and save the lost is not only to misunderstand the very nature of the church, but it also reduces a holy, set-apart people to a mission agency, a program, or a mere instrument. Those who make this claim do not even follow it to its logical conclusion. If evangelism is the only purpose of the church, then everything else we do—worship, teaching, fellowship, sanctification—becomes a waste of time. And yet, even the loudest proponents of this view still expect to be fed spiritually, still desire deep teaching, still seek community. Why? Evangelism alone cannot sustain a church and it was never meant to.

The Glory of God
The highest purpose of the church is not evangelism—it is the glory of God. This truth reframes everything. Paul states in Ephesians 3:10-11 that the church exists so that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (ESV). In other words, the church does not exist primarily for the lost, nor even for its own members, but for the display of God’s glory to all creation. The church does not gather primarily to do something, it gathers to be something: a worshiping people, a holy people, a people conformed to the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18, Colossians 3:9–10). The first and greatest commandment is not “Go and evangelize” but “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37, ESV), “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39, ESV). Any church that neglects the first and greatest foundation in the name of “reaching the lost” will ultimately fail at both. This is why Paul says in Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen” (ESV). We exist for Him first and foremost. In 1 Peter 2:9, believers are described as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (ESV). Paul further reinforces this in Ephesians 1:12, stating that we were saved “to the praise of His glory” (ESV). Likewise, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 reminds us that every work of faith is meant to result in the glorification of Christ: “that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (ESV). Even the unity of the church serves this purpose, as Paul writes in Romans 15:5-6 (ESV), “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” From the beginning, the church was never about itself, it was always about God. We do not measure by how many people fill its seats but by how fully we magnify the splendor of Christ. Evangelism flows out of this, but it is not the root—it is the fruit. A church obsessed with numbers but devoid of true worship is a shell, a façade. But, if we burn for the glory of God, we will inevitably shine so bright that the lost are drawn in, not by gimmicks, but by the undeniable radiance of Jesus.

Worship
Jesus said that the Father is seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). Believers do not gather to strategize on how to win more converts, we gather to exalt the name of Christ. When we prioritize outreach over worship, we will find ourselves spiritually bankrupt, offering entertainment and emotionalism rather than a real encounter with the living God. The Psalms are filled with calls to worship, declarations of a God worthy of praise because of who He is. Psalm 96:9 (ESV), “Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth!” Likewise, in Revelation 4:11, the heavenly beings declare, “Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created” (ESV). The worship of God is not an optional practice, it is the very heartbeat of heaven and must be the heartbeat of the church on earth. Paul exhorts the church in Colossians 3:16, saying, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (ESV). The Bible tells us that the church exists to glorify and enjoy God forever (Ephesians 3:21; Psalm 16:11; Psalm 73:25– 26; Revelation 21:3–4). Worship is not a tool for evangelism, it is not about performance or preference, nor is it a means to an end, it is about exalting Christ, and through that exaltation, we are transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18). A church so filled with the presence of God will not need gimmicks to draw people in because something real, holy, and utterly different from the world will be evident to everyone.

Discipleship
The Great Commission does not say, “Go and get people saved.” It says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, ESV). The real work of the church is discipleship—raising up believers who are rooted in the Word, transformed in holiness, and conformed to Christ’s image. But, if we believe the church exists only to get people saved, and we neglect discipleship, we are not fulfilling the Great Commission. We are birthing spiritual infants and then leaving them to starve. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for this very thing, saying, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it” (1 Corinthians 3:2, ESV). Milk has its place for new born babies, but if we are only drinking milk at twenty years old, something is wrong. A healthy church moves beyond milk to meat, it teaches, trains, rebukes, corrects, and builds up believers in the faith (2 Timothy 3:16-17). This is why Paul told Timothy, “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2, ESV). That is discipleship—multiplying maturity, not just decisions. Jesus modeled this: He preached to crowds, but He invested His life in twelve men, and within the twelve, three saw Him on the mountain and in Gethsemane. Depth, not width, was His method. When discipleship is missing, we do not model faithfulness, we chase numbers and measure success by attendance and not by transformation. But when discipleship is central, we get what Ephesians 4 pictures: the body “joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,” growing up “to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, 16, ESV).

Fellowship and Edification
The New Testament describes the church as a family (Galatians 6:10), a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), and a temple of living stones (1 Peter 2:5), and the church exists to build one another up, to bear one another’s burdens, to sharpen and encourage one another in the faith (Hebrews 10:24-25). Yet those who claim the church exists only for the lost tend to diminish fellowship and community as “inward focus.” We call this a false dichotomy. Rather, a spiritually mature church is one who is filled with believers who know the Word, live it out, and invite others into a rich, biblical community, is more effective in evangelism. The early church grew rapidly, not because it was obsessed with outreach but because it was devoted to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and to prayer (Acts 2:42-47). Evangelism was the overflow of a healthy, thriving church—not the sole purpose. Yes, we do have a mandate to evangelize, Jesus came “to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), but evangelism is the fruit and not the root of the church’s mission. It is one part of a greater calling—to glorify God, to worship Him, to grow in holiness, and to build up the body of Christ. A church that burns only for the lost but not for the Lord will eventually burn out. A church that burns for the glory of Christ shines with a fire no one can ignore and will bear the fruit of evangelism as the natural overflow, and not a desperate programmatic effort.

A Call to Reclaim the Fullness of the Church
If the church were only about seeking the lost, there would be no reason for Sunday gatherings, for discipleship, for worship, for deep teaching because we would only need to be out in the world seeking the lost. And yet, those who claim evangelism as the ultimate goal, still demand the usual Christian routine with glaring inconsistency. The church is not an evangelistic tool, it is the dwelling place of God among His people (Ephesians 2:22), and until we reclaim this truth, we will continue to produce shallow churches, filled with shallow believers, offering a shallow gospel to a world that desperately needs the fullness of Christ. The time is now, we must stop reducing the church to a recruitment agency, and instead embrace the full, biblical identity: The church exists for the glory of God, the worship of Christ, the holiness of His people, and the proclamation of His gospel.

Dear reader, let me challenge you in this: Are you willing to embrace the full, unfiltered purpose of the church? Will you become the church that prioritizes worship, discipleship, and holiness—or one that is frantically chasing numbers at the cost of depth? The call is clear: return to what the church was always meant to be—a radiant, holy, worshiping people who, in their devotion to Christ, cannot help but proclaim Him to the world. Evangelism will be the natural fruit and overflow of a heart rightly oriented toward God our Father.