Why Church Health?
Church health is an effective paradigm that results in church growth. We all want our churches to grow, but real growth requires quality (health), not just quantity (numbers). The church was not designed by God to be a religious organization, but rather a living, growing, dynamic organism. That is why it’s called a body with many members, a family of brothers and sisters and a spiritual house composed of living stones. Organizations are constructed and assembled, but living organisms are grown and nurtured. The growth of organisms focuses on their health, how their individual parts interact with each other and their ability to reproduce. The focus of church health describes the church when it is functioning normally and impacting the world as God designed it to do.
Why is church health important?
- Health is essential for growth. The health (quality) of any organism is pivotal in determining its size (quantity). As a church becomes increasingly healthy, it is more able and likely to produce godly disciples, effective ministries and plant churches that reproduce. When quality takes precedence over quantity, and people are mature and healthy spiritually, quantity (numerical growth) is the beneficiary.
- Many churches today are unhealthy. Many people, even younger generations, greatly admire Jesus Christ but despise the church. Often the church, church leaders or church members have failed to maintain a good reputation. Divisions, immorality, gossip, hypocrisy, judgment, and other factors have turned many away from seeing the church as the world-impacting agent God designed it to be. Churches can only be effective in carrying out their God-given mission when they are healthy.
- When unhealthy churches get healthy, they grow. It is a story happening globally. When churches and leaders recognize they are unhealthy and replace unhealthy traits with healthy ones, the churches grow.
