For a great number of Christians, the obligatory weekly service is the sum total or center of their Christian life.  We are good at gathering together to backslap each other and if we really in the spirit to give someone a hug.  But as they drive away from the congregation, there is no sense of mission.

Our mission is not found within the hallowed halls of some great or small building, it is on the outside.  The mission of the real church, the body of Christ, is in the marketplace.  From the preaching and life of Jesus, as he taught the twelve, and lived his teaching, look closely and you will find them in the marketplace.  It is the central location of want.  It was where the neediest were found.  The marketplace, the place where needs are most felt, is the place for the church.

It is not enough for the organization we call the church to hang a pretty sign upon its facade and call it done.  The world will not come to us.  We dare not wait for the grand influx of bodies to join us in our holy alcove. When we rub shoulders day after day with those who are lost we become the church to them.  People in need of the power and grace to get through the day, need Jesus.  When we go out and be one of them, but not of them we are answering the prayer of Jesus in John 17. We are the living and breathing answer to God.