The tragedy of such parochialism is that the creative thought and energies of people are consumed in the mere maintenance of the church as an institution, and in dead-end religious activity and worship. Mr. Churchill, and thousands of others who are like him, think of the church only as "gathered," as a congregation. They think that the church is most truly the church when its members are assembled in the church building and engaged in church work. They think of the church in terms of "going to church," of working for its organizations, of planning for its promotion, and of meeting the needs of the church as an entity separate from the rest of life. What is even worse, these people think that only when they are doing this church work are they serving God. Theologically, their concept means that Christ died for the church. Instead, Christ died for the world! The purpose, then, of the church is not to meet its own needs but to serve God's purposes in the world. This forces upon us the position that not only should we think of the church in its _gathered_ sense, but also in its _dispersed_ sense. This means that church people should think of themselves as members of the church when they are out in the world, and that their work in the world is the means through which God may act through them in the accomplishment of His purposes. Therefore, in terms of the gathered church we can speak of "church work," but in terms of the dispersed church we must think of the "work of the church in the world," the work of the instrument of God's purposes there. The relation between the gathered church and the dispersed church should be complementary. The church, as the people of God, comes together in a conscious way from out of the world to be renewed, instructed, and equipped for the purpose of returning, as the body of Christ, to its task in the world. Then, out of its work in the world, the church gathers again to worship, to make its offerings, and to be strengthened anew for its work in the world. Elsewhere I have likened the church to an army that has been sent on a mission. In order to accomplish its purpose, it must have a base. In order to have a base, it must assign certain troops to the task of building and maintaining that base, so that the rest of the army may be free to accomplish its mission. We tend, however, to forget the "mission" and wastefully assign most of our people to building and maintaining bases, with the result that we do not accomplish our true purpose. More members need to be assigned to and trained for the mission, where the conflict between life and death goes on unceasingly.