What Is a Healthy Church?

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This seems to have an obvious answer, but does it? Through Natural Church Development, we work with churches to help them become healthier, but what is the real goal? We may first think that more people means healthier. Maybe, but maybe not. I recently had a church leader in Prague ask me if God loves large churches. Interesting question, but I knew what he meant.

Does contentment or joy mean health? Not by itself. I’ve known some unhealthy churches that were quite content and even joyful about their current state.

Answering this question is not only foundational to the focus of Natural Church Development, but it’s also tied closely to every believer and group of believers we call the church. The answer to this question is multifaceted, so it will take more than just a few paragraphs to adequately explore it. Therefore, we’ll work on this answer together over the next several months, so I hope you’ll join me on this journey through this blog.

We can conclude that a healthy church must be aligned with Scripture. God is the One who invented the church, so His teachings and principles have paramount importance. We must consider God’s definition of a church and His statements regarding our mission and purpose, or we may find that our gathering is not a church at all. We all know that just because a group gathers on a weekend, even if it’s in a building that has a sign out front that says “church,” it’s not necessarily a church. After all, the New Testament word church comes from a compound Greek word that means those who are “called out.” Those two words point to purpose, identity, and relationship.

Of course, the first relationship is with Jesus, which means a healthy church is a gathering of believers who stand in right relationship with God, surrendered to Christ’s lordship. That last phrase is a really big deal, but it’s also a challenging concept that may take a while for an individual to fully grasp. I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and I find that God continues to teach me daily what lordship means. One challenge we may have as a church is to figure out how to give individuals the space to struggle with the idea of lordship. Maybe lordship is more of a process than an event – a journey instead of a destination. The longer I’m a Christian and a church leader, the more I think God is more interested in our direction than our conclusion. Are we moving daily toward Christ? Are we surrendering all to Jesus, as we know it, only to have to make a deeper, fresh commitment of surrender with each new spiritual discovery?

... the first relationship is with Jesus, which means a healthy church is a gathering of believers who stand in right relationship with God, surrendered to Christ’s lordship.

So, a healthy church is filled with people moving toward Jesus. This relationship with God will show up in many ways, and we’ll look at the first way next time. For now, are you moving toward Christ, and are you helping those around you move in a Christward direction as well? That’s certainly the beginning of Church health.