What Was the Church For? (And What Is It Still For?)

A Reflection on Paul, Purpose, and Practices, Ancient and Modern

Every now and then, it is worth remembering just how small the early Church really was. When the Apostle Paul sat down to write to places like Corinth, Philippi, or Thessalonica, he was not imagining vast sanctuaries or sprawling campuses. He was writing to house churches—gatherings tucked into the atrium of a Roman domus (house), where perhaps 20 to 40 people would assemble. On a crowded day, maybe 50 could squeeze in. That’s it. That’s the Church Paul knew.

And yet—from those small, imperfect, deeply human communities—the Gospel spread like wildfire.

That should give us pause in modernity because it suggests that the power of the Church has never been in its size, its resources, or even its institutional strength. It has always been rooted in its purpose and the message of the gospel.

So what was the Church for in those days?

If you read Paul closely, a remarkably consistent picture emerges.

First and foremost, the Church gathered for worship. Again and again, Paul assumes that Christians will come together regularly—to pray, to sing, to hear the Scriptures, and to break bread. In 1 Corinthians 11, he speaks of the Lord’s Supper not as an occasional ritual but as the central act of the community’s life. In Colossians 3:16, he exhorts believers to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” In 1 Timothy 4:13, he calls for “the public reading of Scripture, exhortation, and teaching.” Worship was not an accessory; it was the heartbeat.

But the Church was never only about what happened in the liturgy. It was also a community of shared life. They ate together—ordinary meals as well as sacred ones. They prayed for one another. They bore each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). And, importantly, they handled their conflicts within the community. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is almost incredulous that Christians would take one another to secular courts. The Church, in other words, was a place where reconciliation was not just encouraged—it was expected, practiced, and formed.

It was also a community marked by a radical commitment to equity and mutual care. In Acts 2:44–45 and echoed in Paul’s collection for the saints in Jerusalem in 2 Corinthians 8–9, we see a Church that refuses to let its members fall into destitution. Jew and Gentile, rich and poor—these distinctions, so determinative in the ancient world, were being actively dismantled. “There is no longer Jew or Greek… slave or free… male and female,” Paul writes in Galatians 3:28. Not because those identities ceased to exist, but because they no longer determined one’s place in the Body of Christ.

And that had very real consequences.

The Church became, quite literally, a lifeline for the vulnerable. Widows—who in the ancient world often faced economic ruin—were to be cared for (1 Timothy 5). The poor were not an afterthought; they were central to the Church’s life. This was not charity as a side project. It was the community's identity.

So when you put all of this together, a picture begins to emerge:

The Church is for worship.
The Church is for shared life.
The Church is for reconciliation.
The Church is for mutual care.
The Church is for the lifting up of those the world forgets.

Now here’s the hopeful, joyful, and—yes—slightly humbling part:

This is exactly what we are trying to be at Christ Church. Not perfectly. Not without missteps. But intentionally.

When we gather for the Holy Eucharist each Sunday—whether at JoyMass with our children, or in the beauty and reverence of our principal 10:30 liturgy—we are stepping directly into that Pauline vision of a worshipping people formed by Word and Sacrament.

When we share meals—whether at parish picnics, small group gatherings, or around tables of formation—we are doing something far more profound than simply eating together. We are practicing the kind of fellowship that defined the earliest Christians and formed them into communities of shared purpose.

When we care for one another in times of need—through discretionary giving, pastoral care, or quiet acts of generosity—we are living out that intra-church charity that Paul took for granted as the foundational ethic of the early churches he established.

When we partner with ministries that feed the hungry (like MUST), support recovery work, or care for those on the margins (like the Cobb Extension), or supply school supplies, Christmas gifts, or relief to vulnerable kids in our neighborhoods, we are continuing the Church’s ancient vocation as a place where the vulnerable are not forgotten, but honored as equal, valuable and worthy as we are made worthy together in Christ.

And when we work through conflict—not by avoiding it, nor by weaponizing it, but by engaging one another with patience, humility, and grace—we are embodying the kind of community Paul believed was possible in Christ.

In other words, the Church has not changed nearly as much as we sometimes think. The buildings are bigger. The logistics are more complex. The world is, in many ways, more fragmented. But the purpose remains beautifully, stubbornly the same.

And that is good news!

It means that faithfulness is not about inventing something new or being creative. It is about rediscovering something ancient. It is about asking, again and again: What is God already doing among us? And how can we join in?

The same Spirit that animated those small house churches—those gatherings of 20 or 30 believers trying to figure it out as they went—is the very Spirit at work here among us.

In our prayers.
In our songs.
In our shared meals.
In our care for one another.
In our life together in Christ.

And if God could change the world through communities like that…

Well, I suspect God is still changing the world through our work and mission, too.

Pax et Bonum!

Fr. Ben