Written by Jared C. Wilson |
Saturday, September 4, 2021
The best parachurch organizations will continue serving the ministry of the church by supplementing her in the spread of the gospel, not just the doing of good works or the promotion of good values. The mission of the church is to make disciples of Christ, to plant and grow local churches—not local utopias. When a parachurch ministry understands this purpose and sets its efforts alongside it—in development of and in deference to the local church—the work that the ministry does will endure into eternity with the good pleasure of our heavenly Father.

The phone conversation was going well until I asked a surprising question. I had been speaking to a missionary from an outreach organization who was soliciting a commitment of financial support from our church for his efforts, and I guess I asked something he hadn’t been asked before. Or, maybe he had been asked before and was tired of the question. In any event, I didn’t think I was coming out of left field when I asked: “In what way does your evangelistic work serve the local church?”
He could not answer right away. This fellow knew his work was valuable to the kingdom of God because it involved spreading the gospel in difficult places. But I wanted to know if those won to Christ were also won to local churches in which to be discipled. I wanted to know if converts were baptized not just into the life of Christ but into the life of the covenant community of Christ’s body. I wanted to know the church where he held his membership and the pastor or elders to whom he was in submission.
My new friend fumbled around for an answer. It turned out he was more of a “freelancer.” He had a very clear idea about how his work would benefit the Church with a capital C, the universal church. But he was less clear on how it served any particular body.
And therein lies an important matter for the future viability of many parachurch models and the churches they aim to support. But before we get too far into some potential parachurch pitfalls, we should make some clear distinctions.
The Meaning of Parachurch
While we do not clearly see the presence of what we today call the “parachurch” in the Bible, we can see some historic precedents for the parachurch in religious orders and organizations operating alongside and in service to local churches, fulfilling particular ministry endeavors and spiritual enterprises. From Christian organizations mobilized to feed the hungry to nonprofit publishing ventures, so long as there has been the church, there has seemed to be some form of the parachurch.
A parachurch organization is exactly that—an organization that operates alongside (para) the church. Parachurch organizations are groups of Christians, members of the universal church, who engage in specific areas of ministry that serve or supplement the ministry of local churches.
Really, there seem to be as many kinds of parachurch ministries as there are Christian callings. A parachurch focuses on one particular biblical ministry or vocation of the universal church, ideally to serve the local church in its primary focus to proclaim the gospel and make disciples. “Thus,” Jonathan Thigpen writes, “we could say the purpose of the parachurch is to support and enhance the work of the local church, not to replace it.”
And yet this purpose is constantly in danger of being muddied.
The Work of the Parachurch
I was sitting in the back row of a plane from Atlanta to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. A few others from my fellowship and I were on our church’s annual mission trip. It looked as though many others on the plane were on a similar mission. There must have been forty to fifty young people, mostly college students, all wearing matching T-shirts, on their way to do works of service and ministry.
Sitting near a few of these team members, I asked them where they were going and what they would be doing. It turns out that very few of them knew each other.
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The church is the meeting of God’s people. What happens in it is for the benefit of God’s people. Others are welcome to look in, but what we say and do is necessarily for the believers. It is in taking the gospel out to the world that preach the good news to the perishing.

In certain circles, seeking to get unbelievers into church is seen as the highest possible goal. There is nothing better, according to some, when unbelievers come into the church and under the sound of the gospel. That, they aver, is what we ought to be about. At the risk of being deemed a contrarian, I just don’t think that is true.
What goes on inside the church is necessarily for the upbuilding of believers. The church is, after all, a gathering of believers. The world is not the church. What happens in the church is not primarily for the world. It is for believers.
This matters when it comes to our preaching. Sermons are not principally for the purpose of sharing the gospel with unbelievers. They are primarily for teaching and applying God’s Word to God’s people. Sermons are for Christians, first and foremost.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that we kick all the unbelievers out the room on Sunday. Of course it is better for unbelievers to be in the room listening to the Word preached than outside not engaging with it at all. Of course the sermon should include some gospel clarity. Not least because the gospel is not just a message we believe when we first trust in Christ, but is the very heart of everything we do as believers thereafter. But we also want some gospel clarity because – even amongst those who think they are genuine believers already – some of them won’t be. It is only clear gospel preaching that will wake such people up to the fact that they don’t actually belong to Christ.
So, on any given Sunday, I fully expect believers and unbelievers to be present in the room. I am more than happy that unbelievers are there.
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Will our lives be remembered at all? As we think on the closing of Elisha’s life in the few remaining verses in our study, let us set our own minds towards serving our King for all the years the Lord gives us so that He may be well known and that we may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of for us (Philippians 3:12). 

And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, “Get yourself ready, take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Remoth Gilead. Now when you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise up from among his associates, and take him to an inner room. Then take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, ‘Thus says the LORD: “I have anointed you king over Israel.”’ (9:1-3)
So Jehu rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. Then Jehoahaz his son reigned in his place. And the period that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years (10:35-36).
Jehoahaz the son of Jehu became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD (13:1).
So Jehoahaz rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. Then Joash his son reigned in his place. In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash* the son of Jehoahaz became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD (13:9).
So Joash rested with his fathers. Then Jeroboam sat on his throne. And Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel (13:13).
Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!” (13:14).
Excerpts from: II Kings 9 – 13:14 NKJV
Who was the longest serving prophet in the Bible? Moses served the Lord as a prophet for about 40 years. Samuel served about the same amount of time. Hosea served during the reigns of seven different kings, perhaps as long as 60 years. Isaiah served the Lord during the reigns of five kings of Judah during a ministry that may have exceeded that of Hosea’s in length. But Elisha served the Lord beginning with Elijah in the days of King Ahab and continuing through the reigns of Ahaziah (1 year), Joram, (9 years), Jehu (28 years), Jehoahaz (17 years), and a portion of the reign of King Joash* of Israel (16 years). Conservatively, it seems Elisha’s ministry stretched more than 65 years in length!
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