THE CHURCH. It stands at the very centre of God's plans for the world. But what is it? What makes a church...a church? What is its purpose? What is its mission? How is it to be organised biblically? And does any of this actually really matter?

Sadly, we do not live in a time and place where the church of Jesus Christ is esteemed, even among God’s people.

But it has not always been this way. If we stood on the shoulders of faithful men who have gone before us we would see what they saw. We would realise the church, to quote Charles Spurgeon, is “The Dearest Place on Earth”.

So what happened?