Small churches need to focus on health

If you serve in a smaller church and you are not reading Karl Vater's blog you are making a mistake. Karl writes a blog for Christianity Today that focuses on small church ministry. His blogs are right on target for small church leaders and are important reading for judicatory leaders who serve those leaders and their churches. Here is a link to a recent article about how we often fail smaller churches.

My best selling book to date is The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues. Judicatory leaders have ordered copies for all the pastors serving in their associations, regions and districts. Churches have ordered copies for each of their member families, and some have worked through the book as a congregation. Out of the various seminars I have done for various denominations this book serves as the foundation for the one that is most requested. I've had the privilege of teaching hundreds of small church pastors the keys to helping their churches become healthier.

As Karl writes, so much of our emphasis is on encouraging our churches to become bigger, and if it isn't growing then something is wrong. I want to see every church grow, but if an unhealthy church grows it is apt to grow to become even more unhealthy. We don't need more unhealthy, large churches. We need healthy churches, both small and large, to do the work of the Kingdom.

In 1995 when Rick Warren wrote
The Purpose-driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission he claimed "The key issue for churches in the twenty-first century will be church health, not church growth." He was right on target. Church health can lead to church growth, but church growth does not necessarily lead to a church becoming healthier. Sometimes smaller churches believe if they could just grow larger their problems would go away, but that's often not true.

As pastors and lay leaders of smaller churches we need to seek ways to help our churches be healthy. We need to do a diagnosis of every aspect of our church's ministry to see what things are healthy and what needs attention. It will often be helpful to bring in someone from the outside to help perform that diagnosis. That might be a leader from your judicatory, a consultant, or someone else who understands the dynamics of a healthy church.

Once the diagnosis is completed we need to identify the steps needed to help the problem areas become healthier. Sometimes, like in our physical health, the remedies are not pleasant, but they are necessary if we want to regain health. It might mean some temporary discomfort will be needed to become healthier, but that will be a small price to pay to become the church God intended for us to be.

The final chapter in my book is designed to assist with your diagnostic work. I encourage your church to complete a diagnostic check-up annually so if there are any problems you can catch them early when they are easier to fix.

I doubt that anyone would question God's desire for our churches to be healthy so let's get to work on making that happen.