The Church

from this website - http://www.iamsecond.com/questions/where-does-church-fit-into-all-of-this/

Tony Evans

The best way to understand the church is an American embassy. America has embassies all around the world and they’re in foreign territory but they're ruled by the laws of the homeland. All embassies are sovereign territory, they do not belong to the country they're in, they belong to the country they're from. The church is God's embassy in history, reflecting the values of eternity in the locality of earth. The job of the church is not to provide merely weekly inspiration. It is to manifest how God would address an issue if God, Himself were personally here addressing it, since we're His body. So the question is not "Did I like the sermon and did I like the songs?" That's not enough. It is, "How is God addressing the hurts of the people? How is He being a mother to the motherless and a father to the fatherless?" He's creating surrogate parents through His people. "How is He addressing the issue of the poor, how is He the collapse of society? He's providing fathers for those who don't have them, as male mentors. In other words, the role of the church is to be the visible, physical expression of God's activity. If all you get is a sermon and song, well you can get that from a radio or television broadcast. What you can't get is life on life touch and that's what the people of God should be providing.