Church health

In my reading this morning the author (whom I respect and appreciate) wrote that he has a problem with a concern for healthy churches. He believes that the health of a church has little to do with whether or not it is faithfully carrying out the Great Commission. I believe he is seeing church health as the goal and not a product of fulfilling the Great Commission.

My book The Healthy Small Church describes several characteristics of a healthy church one of which is that it is a church that is faithfully taking the Gospel to its community. When you and I go to the doctor for a physical exam our doctor checks numerous things. He or she will not only take our temperature and blood pressure but check our hearing, our eyesight, draw blood for various tests, poke and prod, and at the end of the testing he or she will tell us how healthy we are based on the results of all the tests. Perhaps everything is good except that it is found that our blood pressure is high. Our overall health may be good, but this one aspect needs addressing for our health to be better so a treatment plan is given.

A church is healthy based on a number of things including its faithfulness in carrying out the Great Commission. To the extent that it fails in any of the various areas of church life, it is less healthy. Certainly, if a church is not taking the Gospel to the people it is not a very healthy church.

Church health must never be seen as an end result but as a measurement of many factors of church life. I think it is important for a church to regularly check itself to see how healthy it is and look for areas in which it can improve. The final chapter in my book provides a list of diagnostic questions to help a church check itself in several different areas of church life to determine which areas it needs to improve in order to become healthier.