What is the Church and Its Mission?

The actual word for "church" can be translated as "assembly". A local church is a group of believers in Jesus Christ who gather to fulfill the functions of the church, which include worship, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, service, and discipleship...We proclaim the gospel individually by engaging in personal evangelism and calling others to repentance. We proclaim the gospel corporately by gathering to hear the Word of God preached in our midst...J.I. Packer has summed up our mission this way: "The task of the church is to make the invisible kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing." (Trevin Wax, Counterfeit Gospels)