A question has been nagging away at me for a few months now, and I want to share it with the readers of this newsletter. It is a question which at first seems simple, until you really start to examine it. It is a question which perhaps few of us have ever asked if we have been brought up in church but which many people outside of church will ask. Here is the question: What is church for?

Notice the question does not ask 'what is church'. We could all answer that one with standard Presbyterian Sunday School answers. 'The church is not the building it is the people', we would say. And we would be right. But we would not be telling anyone what the purpose of church is. We would not be saying what church is for.

In the New Testament we get a picture of what church is for through the letters of the apostles. Nowhere does it come across more clearly than in 1 Peter 2 v9; 'But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.'

What is the church for? What were you chosen for? Why did he make you a priest? Why did he set you apart? Why did he bring you into his family? What is your calling? It is to declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. This is what church is for. This is our purpose as Christians – to declare his praises.

And Peter makes it clear that we don't just declare his praises to each other for an hour a week. No, these praises are to be declared 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in our
workplaces, our schools our community and our families. 'Live such good lives among the
pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.' (1 Peter 2 v12)

If church really is not the bricks and mortar of a building but is the people, then those people need to be taking every opportunity to declare God's praises. Their behaviour needs to be so radically distinctive within their society that people will notice that they are different and begin to wonder why.

Our society is changing more rapidly now than at any time in history. Increasingly the church will be pushed to the margins of this society. But historically it is when it has been at the margins that the church has had the greatest impact. That was true in Peter's day, as the gospel spread like wildfire around the Mediterranean world. It was true in the days of the Reformation when a few, otherwise insignificant figures started a movement that changed church and society. It was true in the days of the Wesleys when the established church pushed them out into the fields and roadsides to preach their message. And it is true today.

The Christians to whom Peter wrote were 'aliens and strangers in the world'. That is increasingly what the church is becoming. The question is will we simply bemoan the changes in our world or will we fulfil our purpose, maintain our distinctive calling and
declare his praises? It is what church is for.

Graeme