Essential foundations needed to build strong congregations

How “healthy” is your church?
   
Wait! Before you answer that question, consider it carefully. What is a healthy church anyway?
   
When you look at churches, how do you know which ones are healthy and which ones are not? Are there signs, indicators or other characteristics that may be identified? 
   
Let’s take a step back. Consider some foundational “health” facts. Think about your own personal health. All of us are encouraged to get health checkups on a regular basis. At least every year we are admonished to get our annual “physical.” Why do we do that? Why is it encouraged?
   
Simply put, we need to evaluate whether the physical bodies that we inhabit are operating correctly as designed by our Creator.
   
In order for us to live happy and healthy lives we must give attention to actions and attitudes that contribute to positive health.
   
When something is wrong or we feel pain, we take remedial action — or at least we should.
   
When things are right, we celebrate our health. Such practices are so common that we follow them with little thought or premeditation. It just comes naturally. 
   
Ironically, we have often neglected giving attention to the health of our churches. In the Bible, the church is declared to be the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. 
   
That means that the church is not simply an organization but an organism. 
   
Uniquely composed of human members with Jesus Christ acknowledged to be the Head, the church is indeed the body of Christ.
   
The living nature of this remarkably miraculous organism is unquestionable for all people who believe in the validity of the Bible.
   
But how can we tell whether a church is positively healthy or whether the church needs medicine or therapy or at least a visit to a physician?
   
And how can we take such a unique body to an appropriate place for an appropriate health analysis? Actually, it is not as difficult as one might assume.
   
There are some identifiable factors that usually characterize healthy churches.
   
Some are obvious and some are not so obvious. Some are a little surprising. 
   
Before we consider those, however, we should agree on a foundational declaration about what a healthy church is.
   
This declaration provides a launching point for ultimately describing the “looks” of healthy churches — the signs, the indicators, the characteristics.
   
A healthy church is a biblically functioning community of believers committed to Jesus Christ.
  
–Biblically? The Bible, the Word of God, provides the Guidebook for the examination, evaluation and prescription for the church. The New Testament from Matthew to Revelation may be appropriately regarded as a church-design manual.
   
The Old Testament provides the background and support for the church described in the New Testament.
   
–Functioning? The church has been designed by God, authorized by Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out certain functions.
   
Those functions are worship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, fellowship and prayer. We will come back to these.
   
–Community? There is no institution like it. There is no parallel. A unique living organism composed of spiritually redeemed people is the amazing mystery that the apostle Paul speaks about in his divinely inspired writings.  
   
–Believers? There is a common denominator for all who are a part of this body, this living organism. All who are involved have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. By believing, these persons have now become part of the family of God. 
   
–Committed? These believers have gone beyond mental assent to a posture of heart, soul, mind and life commitment. It is appropriate to say that these “believers” are sold out — lock, stock and barrel.
   
–Jesus Christ? Without hesitation, evasion or reservation of mind, these people have given themselves to Jesus Christ of Nazareth who is their Savior and Lord. Jesus Christ has become the center and the circumference of their lives. He belongs to them because they belong to Him.
   
Is that all there is? Far from it. But if we can agree at least on that declaration of what a healthy church is, we will be on our way to discovering how healthy our own churches are. 
   
We will unpack more of our bags for this journey in our next installment. We will consider three methods by which churches function — the incidental, the accidental and the intentional.