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What is a Church? D. Massimiliano Lorenzini The New Testament speaks of the universal church and local churches. The universal church includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, regardless of race, denomination, etc. Local churches are inclusive congregations of Christians assembling together in a particular place to do God's will. By inclusive I mean that they do not restrict membership to a particular category of Christian such as a youth group is for youth or a chapter of the Gideons is for Christian businessmen. The only prerequisite for being a member of a local church is to be a believer possessing an acceptable profession of faith in Christ and having demonstrated such faith through water baptism. A local church has intrinsic value as an incarnate manifestation of the people of God. A local church also has (or at least should have) instrumental value. This instrumental value can be drawn from the Great Commandments (Mt 22:36-40) and the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20). From the Great Commandments we see the command to love God and love men which imply worship of God and ministry to men. From the Great Commission can be drawn evangelism ("Go . . . make disciples"), fellowship ("baptize them"), and discipleship ("teach them to observe"). Putting these five elements together we find that the purpose of the church is: worship ministry evangelism fellowship discipleship These five elements are comprehensive enough to define a church and they also come from the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself, the Founder of the church. These elements also help us to think of the church as having a mission in the world toward God (upreach--worship), toward itself (inreach--fellowship and discipleship), and toward the world (outreach--evangelism and ministry). So a group of Christians that meets together regularly to fulfill these five purposes, according to the teaching of the Bible, seems to me to be a New Testament church regardless of the size or staffing.

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