By Mark A. Taylor
Is your church healthy?
Unfortunately, our quest to answer that question may send us looking in the wrong direction. Our tendency is to consider symptoms, not causes, of church health. We analyze statistics about giving or growth or participation, externals that may indicate how we”re doing but don”t tell how to make it better.
What can we do to make our church healthier? The best answer””certainly the first answer””is to look in (not out), to cast our gaze upon ourselves.
The function of any individual part affects the health of the whole. A quick look at our physical bodies indicates how this is also true for the spiritual.
For example, develop a kidney stone the size of one grain of sea salt, and the pain will put you in the hospital.
Step on a rusty nail, and your whole body must marshal its resources to ward off infection.
A tiny parasite can turn the complete digestive tract into chaos. Bacteria from a small batch of unwashed lettuce can sicken you for days. Indeed, some people have died from nothing more.
In the same way, a few malfunctioning church members will weaken a whole congregation. An infection of selfishness, apathy, gossip, or false doctrine can bring a church to its knees.
A good doctor examines every part of our bodies in an annual checkup. We can imagine that the Great Physician is looking at every member of his body today to see where the weakness is. We can cooperate by deciding how our own spiritual health is helping or holding back our congregation”s vitality.
Of course we can”t ignore external factors. If our church isn”t growing, we should be concerned; healthy bodies grow. If we don”t have enough money to finance outreach, something”s wrong; healthy bodies move and make a difference.
But what would happen at your church this year if every member reexamined his own prayer life and Bible-reading habit? How would the church grow if every Christian committed to establishing relationships with a few non-Christian neighbors? What could the church accomplish if every member””even those tithing members””decided to trust God with larger gifts each week?
“Every member” includes me, the one person””the only person””I can hope to control. I can look for external signs of health, but the most effective steps I can take will be with myself. I can decide to grow closer to God, reach out to my neighbors, or give more of my money. I can pray and study and serve.
I can discover the satisfaction of finding the first source of a healthy church: It all begins with me.
We received this comment about January’s “Healthy Church”-themed issue from Bruce Webster. We’re printing it in its entirety:
________
Mark,
Jim Collins in Good to Great said it is necessary to “Face the brutal facts.” A brutal fact is that the January issue on healthy churches is a good example of why Christianity is dying in North America. Donald McGavran said every church should plant a church every two years.
Below are quotes from Rick Warren in the forward to Viral Churches.
“Two Thousand years of Christian history have proven that new churches grow faster, and reach more people, than existing churches.
“. . . every local congregation, regardless of size or age, [should] make church multiplication a fundamental component of their evangelism strategy.
“. . . for churches, . . . that have plateaued or are declining, church planting is an indispensable ingredient for renewal and revitalization. It is the fastest way to infuse new life and new people into atrophied fellowships.
“No single congregation can possibly reach every type of person in its community. It takes new churches to reach new generations and new groups of people.
“. . . how do you know when a church is spiritually mature? When it begins to reproduce itself! . . . a church is not spiritually mature until it starts having spiritual babies”“reproducing new churches.
“There is really no excuse for not planting churches. Your church doesn”™t have to be large, wealthy, or established to plant a church.
“. . . at the end of our [Saddleback”™s] first year, when our attendance was around 130, we planted our first daughter church. We”™ve started at least one new church a year for the past thirty years, . .
“You”™d be surprised at how effective new believers and fledgling members can be at church planting.”
I think it was also Rick Warren who said, “Healthy churches reproduce (or plant churches).”
One or two articles had a sentence or two related to reproduction. Otherwise it was totally missing. Where Christianity is growing rapidly it is primarily by the reproduction of leaders, churches, groups and disciples. Christianity will continue to decline in America unless we can begin focusing on reproduction of leaders, churches, groups and disciples.
In your editorial you say, “healthy bodies grow.” Unless they need to add a few pounds, anybody over twenty who is growing has a health problem. Instead, healthy growth comes by reproduction.
We have to emphasize reproduction if we are going to really be healthy.
God Bless you,
Bruce