g 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.

Contrary to the opinion of Mr. Churchill, therefore, a complementary
relation exists between the church and the world. The world is the
sphere of God's action, and the church is the means of His action. The
church must be found at work in the world, where it will encounter the
tension between the saving purposes of God and the self-centered
purposes of man.

As in the case of clericalism, so it is in the case of churchism. There
is a human reason for the existence of the concept and for its
prevalence in the church. The reason, in Mr. Churchill's case, was to
be found in