Thank you for this essay. While so many Christians and church leaders, especially those of us in ‘quality’ churches, are critical and even sinfully condemning of ‘quantity,’ i.e., ‘seeker-friendly’ churches, you have gone straight to the fulcrum and spoken the truth with love: we need balance. Your messages to both types of churches are convicting and constructive.
Concerning your questions, does the Bible provide an answer? I believe we can find clear answers through looking at passages that give instruction, and by considering examples of churches in the Bible. Which passages to choose?! For teaching, how about considering the instructions in Ephesians 4? We know Paul is encouraging unity in the church and in verses 11-16 he gives profound and practical instruction. Notice the purpose of evangelists, pastors and teachers: ‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.’ (Notice the saints do the work of ministry!) Why? So that, as we grow in the unity of ‘the faith’ and in our knowledge of Christ we will mature in sound doctrine and practice, and not be so shallow that we will be easily deceived by false teaching. How? By speaking the truth in love. As a result, when the church body is working and maturing together, it will increase as God wants. We could also look at Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, and to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 2:14-17). For examples, look in Acts at how the early church balanced worship, fellowship, prayer, and bold truth telling to the lost. They gathered together to primarily worship, pray, teach and learn from God’s apostles and his Word. When they left public worship, they primarily encountered the culture and individuals. While there was ‘evangelism’ in the church worship, it was not primary. Outside the church it was their first passion to see people saved. You’ve probably heard it said, ‘Gather for worship; scatter for evangelism.’
The danger of focusing on the lost in church services is that the message tends to become man-centered and the offense of the gospel is seen as something bad, as opposed to speaking the full sovereign God-centered gospel, and trusting God that He purposes to have some offended, and to have many to see their own offense to Him, come to Him in true repentance and beg His mercy. Many churches will never preach the bad news of the good news because it will make the lost uncomfortable. They will preach Romans 8:28, but never 8:30; they’ll preach Romans 9:1 and 10:1 but skip all of Romans 9, because it will offend. True evangelism by Christ followers is motivated by a deeper understanding of the many verses that are avoided in ‘quantity’ churches. Therefore, while they do speak some truth (none of us have our arms wrapped around all the truth with complete understanding) it is a weakened message that may accomplish ‘decisions,’ not ‘disciples,’ and tragically result in deceived I’m-saved-because-I-prayed-the-prayer-walked-an-isle lost church members. Is that really making Him known? Or, is it another humanized god that is being made in our image, a god how we want him to be? For this reason, many in the mega churches have never seen themselves as poor in spirit and mourned over their sins.
On the other hand, the danger of the churches that do boldly speak the truth is that many become proud in their knowledge, and in their way of ‘doing church.’ This is because it isn’t done ‘in love’ for people as much as it is for ‘love’ of the truth, or knowledge. I’ve seen it in my church and myself. We tend to evangelize our children, but nobody at the YMCA, or the neighborhood, or neighborhoods around our church, especially if the people are ‘different.’ Doctrine that does not lead to eager and loving obedience is worthless and even harmful (not to mention offensive to God.) God have mercy on us all!
The solution, I think, is for churches to speak the truth boldly and with love. Bold meaning not tone of voice, but not holding back a part of the truth that may offend, and not skipping knotty verses. Love meaning to have true care and compassion for God and the lost, not a tone of superiority or Gnostic pride, but with humility and gentleness, and patience with how the hearers will or will not respond (cf. 2 Tim 2:24-26; 3:10-4:5). Preach the word, be patient with the response!
Could it be that just as individuals are given spiritual gifts and excel in that function, local bodies of believers are gifted and excel in one discipline or Christian duty over the others? Does God give gifts to churches as well as to individuals? Should all churches strive and desire to mature in their practice of all Christ’s gifts? Since people will go to either one or the other type of church, and not to both at once, we need to strive for balance in all churches: ‘until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,’ (Eph. 4:13); ‘speaking the truth [all] with love’ (Eph. 4:15).
Thank you again for your call for balance, and I, too, am grateful to God that our Lord Christ will build his church, even if it doesn’t look like it all the time.

Thanks Southron - very informative.

Love the essay, Shrode. Balance is everything. I lean way too hard toward "inward". I assume that's because I am an introvert at heart.

Glorifying God is definitely what it is all about. I will be trying to move toward an outward focus in my service within the church for a little while. I think I have some support for a rewrite of the 4 Spiritual Laws tract based upon the discussion here a month or so ago, and if that works out, we'll try to use it.

Going back to the inward focus, though, I am currently a little over 3/4 of the way through "Connecting" by Larry Crabb. He has never really impressed me before as saying anything unique, but this book is overwhelmingly unique. He is a therapist telling Christians that they don't need him. They need each other. In the church. Awesome message.

In a nutshell, he says that brothers and sisters have the ability to get a vision for what the Spirit may be doing in a person as he goes through trials. They can take that vision, and remind the person what matters - meeting God, mortifying the flesh, and vivifying the spirit - instead of telling them platitudes or referring them to a counsellor. Counselling, he says, focuses on deeply analyzing the problem when more often than not the solution is available right there in the body of Christ.

If we could form this kind of deeply supporting community, I think the world might really believe that we love each other.

Shrode,
You call it like it is in this piece, brother.
One of my fantasies, once I am through seminary and more involved in the day to day workings of my church, is to set up inter-church meetings and activities. In my ideal vision, the Congregational church will meet with the Baptists, the Methodists with the Catholics, the Presbyterians with the Pentecostal church, etc. etc. The intent would be two-fold: to promote Christian unity across denominations and to develop inter-church outreach to the community. I dreamed this up (and I am sure there are already communities that do this) a few months ago in direct response to the issues you bring up here.
It seems that every church needs both the internal focus and the outward focus, but the life of a particular church may require focus on one or the other for a time. The key is not getting stuck there. I live in the land of megachurches, Minnesota, and they all seem cut from the same cloth...and their buildings are astonishingly ugly, as an aside. On the other hand, the smaller neighborhood churches struggle in the face of those churches, and that is a tragic loss in my mind. If somehow, all of them could begin to work together to build each other up, as Paul tells us to do, we would all be better off. I have a theory as well, though, that where the church is struggling - and it is on both ends of the scale you present - is where the church is maturing.
Peace!

Thank you for this--the church *does* need balance.

Great post. I have only one thing to add to your well-balanced discussion: the mission of the Body cannot be different from the mission of the Head. Whatever the Bible says was Christ's mission or purpose, that is to be our purpose. Therefore, since Christ came to seek and save the lost, shouldn't WE be the "seekers", rather than expecting the lost to come to us? I would add to your two purposes a third, to be "the light of the world".

True balance. Picture a fulcrum and a lever, a seesaw, or scales, the thingy a lawyer has on his desk. Now, truth is on one side and love on the other (separated only for the sake of the illustration). Truth is heavy. To achieve apparent balance, the temptation the church must resist is to take a little of the heaviness off the truth side. That is the easy way to make the scales look balanced. But, in reality, the love side is too light. That is why removing some truth reveals less love rather than more. See? Instead, don't lighten the truth, rather add to the love to achieve true balance. Paul wrote to the Philippians: 'It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment' (1:9).

Southron

That's an amazingly wise picture. So good!

As usual you are pointed enough to be timely and enlightening while shadowed enough to be engaging and timeless!

Not meaning to turn from the dichotomy of inward vs outward, but rather to wonder how either can grow without more specific points of purpose within the Body itself, manifested in the organization of the various giftings, interests and personalities of the individual members amongst the areas of needs the church realizes in its mission(s) and /or ministry(ies).

In just a few word I can sum up what I believe is the whole of the matter. You are right that the Church is to Glorify God. What confuses some is not understanding that the gathering on the first day is for the saved to edify one-another, to praise and worship God in Spirit and Truth, and to share in the Supper. Every day the duty of each is to seek the lost and share the Gospel.