With Christianity as your foundation; describe what you think is the essence and the purpose of the Church in our day.

The
Church, at its core in Christian belief, is the mobile unit of God's plan for salvation and
outreach here on Earth, and that has not changed. It is up to the church to reach out and
evangelize and minister to people both locally and internationally, attempting to win their
souls to Christ and help them enter Heaven.

From a more humanistic
standpoint, however, the Church has a role in humanitarian action and outreach to help improve
lives. It is an express mission of the Church today to help ease the suffering of humanity at
large, and so the Church should be at the forefront of outreach actions and in disaster relief.
Biblically speaking, the Christian Church is supposed to care for the orphan, widow, unwed
mother, and prisoner (an all-encompassing phrase which implies that they are to reach out to all
who are helpless or cast out of society in some way or another). In that regard, the Church is
meant to be generous and do good works to help humanity at large.