The Healthy Church

In this age of the Mega-Church movement and countless books on church
growth most who are in ministry have been exposed to books, videos,
emails, websites, conferences and workshops. All of these promise to
give you a set of strategies and steps to take your ministry to the next
level. I am not writing this to criticize any of them, but to look at
church growth from a different perspective.

When we think of health we our bodies. We consider someone to be
healthy who is not sick. When we look at our churches we often think
of them the same way. If we are growing and there is not a scandal
going on we consider the church to be healthy. According to Wikipedia
Encyclopedia, At the time of the creation of the World Health
Organization, in 1948, health was defined as
being "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". If this is true,
health has not only to do with physical wellness but also with mental
and social wellness. As Christians we believe that a healthy Christian
is someone who possesses wellness in his spirit, soul and body. When a
person is healthy physically, mentally and socially they have all that
is necessary for healthy growth. When a Christian is healthy in their
spirit, soul and body they can grow as a christian. If this is to be
applied to the church we should look at the 3 aspects of ministry that
should be functioning in order for a church to have healthy growth.

Healthy church growth is not just numeric. It means that the church is
increasing in numbers, the members are being discipled and equipped for
service and that those disciples are being moved into leadership. Jesus
demonstrated this in his ministry. At the beginning of his ministry he
brought in followers who we know as his disciples. He taught and
prepared these disciples and later he sent them out with the command
"Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations". The Healthy
Church is one that is effective in the areas of Evangelism, Discipleship
and Leadership. These churches are effective in winning the lost
through evangelism, education and equipping them for life and service
through discipleship and moving them to service and mentoring through
leadership.

Healthy Church Assessment

We will look at these areas further in the next entry

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