Marks of a Healthy Church
ChurchJust been chatting to a pastor friend. In the course of conversation he said he is often asked by students moving on from his church at the end of their studies where he would recommend them to join up with in this city or that city.
If you were to have 10 check-boxes to help someone evaluate a biblical, missional, kingdom-extending church, what would the content of those boxes be? What things, though important, would you think are secondary and leave out? And what secondary things do you find so desirable that they ought to at least have a say in the evaluation? And how many boxes out of 10 would you say they need to be able to check for you to be comfortable with them going there? Feel free to leave some comments on what would be in your definition.
When you have your boxes, the real question is how many of them does your own church tick?
Mark Dever famously has his 9 marks that he says shows a local church reflects the character of God. They are:
1. Expositional preaching
2. Biblical theology
3. Biblical understanding of the good news
4. Biblical understanding of conversion
5. Biblical understanding of evangelism
6. Biblical understanding of membership
7. Biblical church discipline
8. Promotion of Christian discipleship and growth
9. Biblical understanding of leadership
It is an interesting list. There are all kinds of things it doesn't contain. No mention of a theological system, other than "biblical". No mention of particular activities, of what constitutes biblical fellowship (maybe that is the membership bit), social action, what to expect on a Sunday. I would be tempted to put number 8 at the top of the list. Would you put those things in or leave them out? How many does my church tick? Not all of them.
Maybe in thinking through where we would recommend for other people there is a helpful evaluative exercise for spotting the weaknesses in our own fellowships that we are otherwise blind to. By what criteria would people recommend others to come to us? And are we happy with those criteria? Is "go to that church because of its excellent preaching ministry" a sufficient criteria? Or because its kids activities are the best in the area, or because it has its theology right?
Not easy questions. I am certain of one thing, however, and that is a particular criteria you should never choose on: will I feel comfortable and at ease? (not in the sense of feeling at home, but in the sense of it being a place where the discomfort of really living the gospel won't impinge upon me). Far too many people get to the point where church is their unchallengeable comfort zone, the one place in the week where they feel no demands are made on them, there are no expectations of them participating in the fulfilment of vision. Churches should be continually restless, continually changing to meet the challenges of a fresh world, continually pushing new boundaries.
A little while ago someone told me that people go to their church because they like the way that church has always done things stylistically. They used this to argue that the church should never, ever change from that cultural style (mid-70s Kendrick) because it was clearly style that was attracting people. A classic example of someone baptising their comfort zone and looking for a way to reinforce it. Thankfully most people currently being attracted to that church are going because of biblical preaching, evangelism and mission and being attracted despite the cultural style. It will change eventually, but I hope that person sees the light before they are forced to confront the fact that there is a difference between biblical church and "what makes me feel comfortable."
Reader Comments (5)
Exactly right on the comfort thing.....
....but, ah, mid-70's Kendrick...........
Its not the content of Mid-70s Kendrick that's the problem, Adrian. Nor even the musical style. I find a lot of that stuff excellent.
Its the desire to find a golden age that equates to "what I like", and then insist that is the highpoint of biblical Christianity, never to be deviated from. That person could have picked another age - 1558, 1662, Great Awakenings, Spurgeonic London, MLJ, Lucas and Stott in the 60s and similarly enshrined those, and the issue would be the same: contextualising ourselves somewhere other than in present day reality. And more and more divorced from reality and evangelistic effectiveness with every passing year, justified by stylistic preference.
But I know you already agree! Hope your house move has gone well
Interesting. All 9 are relevant but beg the question of what is meant by "Biblical". I'd only include #2 as vital but even then not exclusively. And the definitions are all a bit word rather than spirit.
The Mystery Worshipper website classifies a church in terms of welcome, worship and preaching (though that misses out the deeper side).
My definition of a good church (off the top of my head):
1. Building friendships (not just "friendly")
2. Effusive worship (varied styles including LOUD and soft)
3. RELEVANT preaching (I find expositional preaching largely irrelevant)
4. Culturally relevant (maybe confused with style)
5. Outward-looking
6. Biblical rather than cultural (try asking - why do we do that?)
I find it hard to reach a conclusion about the stylistic thing. Most styles put me off.
Interesting that the Mystery Worshipper site doesn't include community as a category
Relevant preaching is an interesting one. I sometimes hear boringly irrelevant preaching justified on the grounds of "but it is God who decides what is relevant, we just have to preach the whole Bible accurately" (and boringly). However there is the germs of a good point in that. Because I also hear preaching that is highly peppered with applications for this week, but that is ephemeral and seems to have little of eternal value to it.
I think my preferred category is "eternally valuable preaching"
Eternally valuable preaching sounds good. I think it helps the application if the preacher knows the congregation well. And just cos it's in the Bible, doesn't mean that it's relevant at that time (otherwise why did Paul write more than one letter?)