Is The Church Introverted or Extroverted?

One of the perks of the last year of preparation for planting a church in the upstate is that I have been assessed by everybody but Santa Claus himself. You would think that I enjoy these assessments since I did undergraduate and graduate work in psychology. However, I must admit that psychological tests make me laugh.

Primarily because they rarely tell me anything I don’t already know to be true. One of the most often assessed areas of personality is whether a person is extroverted or introverted. And guess what? Every time I take the test I am right in the middle. Each test I take tells me that I am both an extrovert and an introvert at the same time. Sometimes an extrovert…sometimes an introvert…And I know this to be true about myself. And I like it.

Churches are often assessed and structured as to whether the nature of the church should be oriented towards an introverted focus (meaning that the focus is on developing those that show up at the church building) or an extroverted focus (meaning that the focus of the church is on pursuing those outside the church building).

So which is right? Is the church extroverted or introverted?

In Scripture we see that the church should have a healthy focus on developing and cultivating the work of the Lord in those that are already a part of the local church. In fact, we are told that one of the primary purposes of the elders of the local church is to ^“to equip God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13). The goal of this equipping work is that those who know Jesus and are a part of the local church are intentionally placed in a structure that allows them to develop an intimate and ongoing relationship with the Lord. The goal being that those who trust in Jesus mature and attain the fullness of what God has designed them to embody.

However, an introverted church is not sufficient. Throughout the Scriptures we see that the mission of God is not content with those already in the fold. Jesus himself says that if a shepherd already has 99 sheep he will leave those 99 to go and look for the one sheep that is lost (Luke 15). An extroverted focus of the church in an attempt to fulfill the Great Commission is the necessary implication of the local church's understanding of the gospel. If people are maturing in Christ, they will join God on His mission. No false dichotomy here.