What Makes a Healthy Church Healthy?
February 2006
A colleague of ours, preparing to deliver his annual "state of the church" sermon, called us recently. "The two of you are in and out of all kinds of churches all over the U.S. What are the factors you're finding that effective, vital churches have in common these days?"
His question made us stop and think. Like many of you, we sometimes use Natural Church Development - they do a great job of addressing the wide range of factors that affect church health. A cluster of core focuses, however, seem to form the essential foundation in the healthy congregations we're seeing.
Here are the three that we've seen make the difference.
Factor Number One – Continual spiritual formation as an essential for everyone rather than an activity for some: Spirituality provides the foundation and inspiration for ministry and service. Instead of just offering opportunities for the interested, there is an expectation that each person engages in intentional, structured, and ongoing spiritual formation. The pastor, staff and lay leadership embody and model the centrality of on-going faith formation through their own involvement in private disciplines and participation in faith development groups. Persons new to the church are quickly connected with settings that address their faith formation.
Assessing Yourself Is there a clear expectation that leaders will engage in processes of personal spiritual formation in addition to participating in corporate worship? Do leaders hold each other accountable in their spiritual formation practices? Do all meetings incorporate spiritual formation practices as a key part of their work in addition to “doing” business? Are the diverse spiritual needs of members recognized with settings planned to respond to these differing needs?
Factor Number Two – Relationships among the people that embody the kindom of God: Relationships - right relationships - are at the heart of the Christian faith. The reign of God implies not just individual enlightenment, but true community. Church, by definition, is intended to be a foretaste of God's kindom community. How members of the “body” relate to each other speaks volumes about the health of that body. In a healthy church, people practice more than mere civility. They recognize the value of each diverse part of the body and recognize each as a valued part of the whole.
Assessing Yourself Are there commonly held covenant commitments that include honor, respect, compassion, love? Is each voice heard and the wisdom of each voice received? Does collaboration mark the corporate work rather than people working in silos? Are diversity and conflict used as a basis for creativity? Are congregational relationships fulfilling and life-giving? Do people beyond the church look at the congregation and say, "see how they love one another?"
Factor Number Three – A deep, pervasive concern for the temporal and spiritual well being of those beyond the doors of the church: Jesus got himself into a lot of trouble when he proclaimed that he had come into the world "only to the lost sheep...” Mt 15:24. When a church truly seeks to be the body of Christ, nothing less than Christ's mission can serve as their central mission. People sense a deep urgency – not for the church's own institutional strength or for its “standing” in relation to other churches or groups in the community - but for the "lost sheep." The urgency is a holy urgency – a deeply held commitment to helping people find and experience life to the fullest extent possible.
Assessing Yourself Are people aware of the deep inner needs and longings of those in the community beyond the doors of the church? Do hearts ache as people reflect on those living trapped lives marked by emptiness, loneliness, hopelessness? Does their concern move them to action? Are people outside the church viewed from the perspective of the needs of the church or from the perspective of what they need? Do people reach out to other people?
There are many things you can measure that are indicators of vitality: average worship attendance; numbers received annually through profession of faith into membership; participation in small covenant groups; participation in mission/service ministries; average percentage of income given to the church. While these may indicate vitality, they are not the reasons why a congregation is healthy. Spiritual formation, right relationships, a passionate commitment to people and creation - these are factors that make a difference. These are also the areas we see many churches avoiding in favor of working on worship, tightening their vision, or restructuring their organization. And while these latter three are important, without a foundation in the first three factors, churches are building their house upon sand.
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Rank your church on a scale of 1(low) to 10 (high) for each of the above factors. For those receiving a 6 or less, reflect on the following questions:
What does the congregation (and what do I ) get by NOT being strong in this area?
What keeps us (and me) from addressing it?
What would have to change for us (for me) to strengthen this area?
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