What should the church be?

John Shroeder continues Jim Martin's discussion on church systems and discipleship:

The problem that Jim describes is about what we strive for. We strive to build an organization instead of striving to use an organization to build people. . . We lack vision for what the church SHOULD BE.

Think about that for a minute. We have a vision for what we as individuals should be, but what should the church be? Aside from "growing"? Come on, don't you think our vision should be a little more radical than that?

Yes, indeed. If Christians are truly going to move beyond self-centered discipleship, we need to have an idea of what the church should be.