the purpose of the Church

The church exists to worship God. That basic fact needs to be asserted clearly and unambiguously again and again, for it is not at all obvious to many members of the church who assert that the church exists to evangelize the world ("the church is mission") or to serve people's needs (the clergy are thought of as members of the "helping profession.") The church, in its grandest view of itself and its most basic view of its purpose, exists to give God what is due, to acknowledge God as God. The one who is the creator and preserver of the whole universe is, as the Te Deum sings, "worthy of all worship." The purpose of the church is to focus and render that worship.

-Philip H. Pfatteicher, Liturgical Spirituality