In the series finale of The Church, Pastor Adam Stadtmiller arrives at the fourth and final purpose — Mission — and immediately reframes what that word means. Mission isn’t the program or the outreach event or the sandwich line, though it can include all of those. Mission is something far larger: the Church functioning as God’s masterpiece on display, making His manifold wisdom known to every power and authority — seen and unseen — through the transformed lives of ordinary people.

In the third message of The Church series, Pastor Adam takes up the third of four church purposes — Identity, Unity, Maturity, Mission — and reframes what maturity actually means. The goal of the church, he argues, is not attendance. It is conformity to the person of Jesus Christ, a distinction that sounds subtle but changes everything about how a believer lives.

Division doesn’t just weaken the church — according to Ephesians 2, it contradicts the entire point of the cross. Pastor Adam Stadtmiller walks through what Jesus actually accomplished: not just saving individuals, but tearing down the wall between them and creating one new humanity. The call to unity isn’t a nicety. It’s the evidence the world is waiting for.

Before anything else can matter — mission, unity, maturity — the church has to settle one question: who are we? Pastor Adam Stadtmiller opens The Church series in Ephesians 1, tracing what it means to be chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sealed by the Spirit. Not as doctrine to affirm, but as a foundation to stand on.

Where you sit matters. Back from sabbatical, Pastor Harry reads Ephesians 2 on being seated with Christ, answers why that was necessary at all, and passes on the question he was asked twice while away: what would you do if you knew it would not fail?

Pastor Adam defines gossip sharply enough to remove its defences: a coercive social weapon that creates influence for whoever shares it. Ephesians 4:29 supplies a standard higher than merely being true, and James 1:26 supplies the harder line.