We're going through Colossians right now. Here's what one commentary said about Chapter 1.

(1) The head of the church. If Christ is the head of the church, it means that the destinies of creation and the church are bound together and that God’s purposes for all creation gestate in the church’s congregational life. The church does not exist to meet the needs of its members or to insure its institutional survival, but to fulfill the redemptive purposes of Christ, its head.