Among the Christian brothers and sisters I mix with, the expressions "the work of the church" and "the Lord's work" are often heard. My brethren are very concerned that the Lord's work gets done by the church, and gets done right.

Occasionally one finds churches who are not doing the Lord's work, or they are doing work that is not really the work of the church as authorised by our Lord. This is a genuine concern.

There is sometimes, however, a far too narrow view of "the Lord's work" and what constitutes "the work of the church". This lesson addresses certain points that help us to understand the work of the church and how it is done scripturally.

The Threefold Work

Broadly speaking, there are three main activities that make up the work of the church of Christ. They are:

Now that we have broadly and briefly noted the nature of the Lord's work, let's go on to consider some important general concepts relating to this work.

Local and Global Responsibility

The church's work is normally and naturally focussed in its own locality. The deacons are in charge of this work overseen by the elders. We notice that the first church in Jerusalem was very active doing its worship, teaching, and benevolent work there in Jerusalem (Acts 2:41-47, 4:32-35, 6:1-7).

Beyond a church's own locality

While every local church obviously has a local responsibility, there are occasions when the need in a locality is much greater than the local church there can cope with. This happened in Jerusalem when famine compounded the church's problem with poverty. So other churches in places like Galatia, Achaia, and Macedonia, began giving assistance sacrificially to assist their brethren in Judea (1Co 16:1-3, 2Co 8:1-5, 9:1-5).

The same can be true of the teaching work where are white unto harvest but the labourers are few" (Jhn 4:35, Lke 10:2). Churches co-operate in putting missionaries where the need is great and the local church cannot cope. A local church can also help, for example, on a global scale by supporting the translation, publication, and distribution of Bibles or supporting teaching work on the internet just as the Bairnsdale church is doing with the Simply Christians Australia site you are using at the moment. Even small local churches can (and should) do the Lord's work globally as well as locally.

On the same principle, but perhaps on a smaller scale, churches will sometimes come together for fellowship in combined worship. Or perhaps a group from a large church will go to visit a small church to worship with them. In Australia it is common practice for "Christian camps" to be held once or twice a year, to enable brethren from various local churches to come together for a season of refreshing.

Individual Initiative

We can all fall into a trap, if we are not careful, when we are thinking and talking about "the work of the church". We can think only of that work being done corporately, that is by the church acting as a body. However, the church also works distributively, that is by the members each acting individually.

In most cases, opportunity to help the needy, for example, comes to the notice of individual Christians and households, and they handle the matter themselves. If your next door neighbour's house burns down, you first take out of your own cupboards. You probably don't ring the church office. The good Samaritan took personal responsibility for providing the urgent needs of the person he helped (Lke 10:30-37).

Even when someone does ring the church office, the result may well be due to individual responsibility. Quite often people think that the church provides groceries, blankets, and such, because they are taken from a storeroom at the church building. People may be unaware that these items were actually donated on an individual basis by various church members so the church would not have to bear the cost. Many churches encourage that simple system for emergency hampers, which are a common form of benevolence especially in depressed localities where a lot of people live in poverty.

Working as Individuals

Bible passages on the Lord's work often have an individual emphasis. You will notice this for example in James 2:15-16 James 1:27 and Titus 3:14.

As we mentioned, when referring to "the work of the church", we are usually thinking of the work being done corporately rather than distributively. We are thinking of the church working as a body or organisation. We are not so much thinking of the individual members working severally on their own initiative. The scriptures don't really make much distinction between the two things.

Look at Ephesians 4:15-16 for example, which says in part, "the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body..."  Here there is a blending of the distributive with the corporate, and the individual working is the primary thing, working in harmony with the whole body. "Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it" (1Co 12-27).

We can get too organisation minded and think too much of the corporate church, the "one body" and not think enough of the distributed church, the "many members". Much of the work that the Lord wants the church to do can be done by members working individually, personally, privately, from their own houses, out of their own purses, and on their own initiative, albeit in harmony with the whole body and with its blessing.

That is often the best way for the Lord's work to get done.

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