Parachurch Ministries

The trend toward new church models is both encouraging and disturbing. Encouraging because there is the need in every generation to adapt our message to reach the culture; disturbing when that adaptation competes with the Church for time, talent and treasure - or worse, becomes a substitute for the Church.

"Para-churches" exist to minister where churches don't. Bill Bright's Campus Crusade set out to reach college students, overseas mission organizations formed to reach the lost in areas of the world for which the Church had no vision. In the last forty years para-church ministries have exploded, specializing in everything from men, to teens and addicts.

The goal of every such ministry should be to go out of business, for they should exist to equip the Church to do the work that it is not doing. Unfortunately, many have taken on a life of their own, tapping the resources of churches and functioning as parasites rather than partners.

It's hard to conceive that Jesus would have approved of what we see today. I am thankful for Christian organizations that have intentionally come alongside the church to equip it, but cautious toward those who seem to have become churches in themselves.