Parachurch or the Church? And the Church? In the Church

Source:

Peter Greer (@peterkgreer) is president and CEO of HOPE International. Chris Horst (@chrishorst) is the vice president of development at HOPE International. Together with the support of Anna Haggard, they coauthored Mission Drift and Entrepreneurship for Human Flourishing. They wrote this essay with support from HOPE intern, Andrey Bobrovskiy. …

For centuries, the local church was the centerpiece of outreach and service. The rapid creation of separate parachurch organizations is a relatively recent phenomenon. Para, parachurch’s prefix, is Greek for “alongside” or “beside.” The purpose of parachurch organizations is to come alongside, to support, the local church….

More significantly, a philosophical and subtle separation developed between the “works” of justice and the “message” of salvation. Slowly, the church was given the responsibility to share the Good News verbally while the work of restoration went to nonprofits. Our crumbling ecclesiology has created a fissure we ought to work hard to mend…

Despite the imperfections of every church this side of heaven, the church is God’s Plan A. There is no Plan B. His work continues through His chosen instrument. With a supernatural origination and divine mandate, the church is Christ’s hands and feet bringing the Good News as we love God and our neighbors. As parachurches, we remember we are the bridesmaid, not the bride. Our job is to gird and strengthen Christ’s church, not to replace it.

Parachurches cannot remain true to their mission without a rigorous ingratiation with Christ’s body—the church. Working under the authority of—or in close collaboration with—like-minded churches is perhaps the easiest way to stay on mission. When a religiously apathetic culture asks why faith-based organizations are any different than our secular counterparts, an adhesion to the church makes our response much clearer.

The reason parchurches should bind to the church is so they can stay aligned to their full mission. The church grounds all good works in the grander vision of humanity’s fall and God’s redemption. For organizations desiring to stay true to their mission, our question about partnering with the church should be “How do we partner?” not “Should we partner?”