Back to Basics: What the Church Is Really For?

Back to Basics: What the Church Is Really For

There is a moment in the history of the Green Bay Packers that has become something of a legend. Coming off a losing season, the players gathered for the first practice expecting to pick up right where they had failed. Instead, their coach walked into the locker room, held up a football, and said simply: "This is a football." He went back to the basics. Not because the players were ignorant, but because somewhere along the way, the fundamentals had gotten buried under complexity, pressure, and distraction. That decision to return to the foundation changed everything.

The church today needs that same kind of moment.
We live in a season of relentless busyness. Schedules are packed, calendars are overflowing, and the pace of life seems to accelerate with every passing year. Churches are no exception. Ministries multiply, events stack up, and programs compete for attention. And yet, in the middle of all that activity, it is entirely possible to be a very busy church that has quietly drifted from the one thing it was actually called to do.

So what is the church really for?

The Foundation: Colossians 1
The Apostle Paul's letter to the Christians in Colossae offers a stunning answer. Writing to a first-century church navigating confusion and competing influences, Paul cuts straight to the heart of the matter. In Colossians 1, he paints a breathtaking portrait of Jesus Christ -- the image of the invisible God, the one through whom all things were created, the one in whom all things hold together, the firstborn from the dead, the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He is the one who made peace through the blood of his cross, reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.
This is the foundation. Everything else flows from here.

Paul then arrives at what might be the most clarifying sentence in the entire letter, found in Colossians 1:28. He describes his entire ministry purpose in a single breath: proclaiming Christ, admonishing every person, teaching every person with all wisdom, so that every person might be presented complete in Christ. That word "complete" carries the weight of maturity, wholeness, and full formation into the likeness of Jesus.

That was the goal of the early church. Not attendance numbers. Not impressive programming. Not community reputation. Maturity in Christ.

Proclaiming Christ Clearly
The church exists to proclaim Christ. Not Christ plus anything else. Not Christ alongside a compelling personality or a polished brand. Just Christ.

It is easy for churches -- and individual Christians -- to become so focused on the signs that they forget what the signs are pointing to. Imagine driving toward a breathtaking mountain range, so captivated by a billboard advertising the destination that you pull over, set up camp, and never actually make it to the mountains. Absurd, of course. But this is precisely what happens when the activities and structures of church life become the point rather than the pointer.

Every ministry, every gathering, every act of service should exist to help people know, love, and follow Jesus Christ. If something cannot be connected to that purpose, it is worth asking honestly: why are we doing this?

The message of the church is not the church itself. It is Christ. And that message must be proclaimed without apology, without addition, and without distraction.

Pursuing Maturity Intentionally
Paul's goal was never casual exposure to truth. It was transformation. The language he uses in Colossians 1:28 involves both admonishing and teaching -- two distinct but equally necessary practices. Teaching grounds people in truth and builds them up. Admonishing warns, corrects, and awakens people to what is real.

Both are hard. Admonishing is harder. But a church that only comforts and never corrects is like a doctor who only hugs patients and never treats them. Warm, perhaps. But ultimately failing the people it claims to care for.

The standard for spiritual maturity is not how we compare to the culture around us. It is Christ himself. And when measured against that standard, every one of us has significant room to grow. The honest questions worth sitting with are these: Where am I really in my walk with Christ? What sinful patterns do I need to put off? How does my thinking need to change? What does it look like to put on the character of Christ in the ordinary moments of my daily life?

These are not comfortable questions. But they are the right ones.

Laboring Dependently
Here is where many well-meaning Christians and churches quietly go wrong. Recognizing the seriousness of the mission, they throw themselves into effort -- planning, programming, striving -- and forget the source of the only power that actually changes people. Paul addresses this directly in Colossians 1:29. He says he labors and strives, but then immediately clarifies: it is according to Christ's working, which works in him with power. The labor is real. The effort is genuine. But the power is entirely Christ's.

This is not a passive posture. It is a dependent one. We work, but we work knowing that transformation belongs to God alone. We share the gospel, but we trust that only Christ can save. We teach, but we rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine. We plan, but we pray harder than we plan.

The Puritan pastor Richard Baxter captured this beautifully when he wrote that our whole work must be carried on under a deep sense of our own insufficiency and of our entire dependence upon Christ. That is not a discouraging word. It is a liberating one. Because Christ does not fail.

The Invitation
The church was never meant to be one more item on an overcrowded calendar. It is the body of Christ, gathered and sent, fueled by worship and deployed for mission. It exists to proclaim Christ, to pursue maturity, and to do all of it in complete dependence on the power of God.

The question worth carrying into this week is not how busy you are. It is whether the things filling your life are pointing you -- and the people around you -- toward Christ.

Go back to basics.

This is a football.