Characteristics of a Healthy Church

[Karlena]

I think the importance for churches to be healthy goes back to Wes Mills' previous assertion in the Ethos unit of this course that "the right environment produces positive outcomes." Positive outcomes that we want to see are that people are empowered to love, serve, and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and to fulfill His commission to make disciples of every nation. Or, to put it differently, ACOP churches have the ultimate positive outcome of being part of a global movement of passionate people who are extending grace and igniting hope in the community of the local church as well as communities around the world. Some more specific positive outcomes of a right environment were listed in the Ethos unit: "Loyalty, Faithfulness, Commitment, Cohesiveness, and attracting new members." I think this describes what happens when we have a healthy church. A healthy church is vibrant, empowering and effective in their mission. The marks of an unhealthy church would be the opposite: lack of commitment, discord/confusion/lack of cohesiveness, complacency/passivity/lack of participation and engagement from members, and church members (or the community) are "turned off" and want to leave. I think one of the main features of an unhealthy church that I have seen in recent years are churches who are: 1) not making disciples who make disciples" but rather have a tendency to become quite closeminded about reaching out and 2) governance is about restricting instead of releasing—in other words, the same exclusive small group "runs the church" for "spectators" over a period of years.

[Jardelle]

It’s important for churches to be healthy as health is growth. Personally and corporately. Nobody is perfect, therefore churches are not perfect ass while, bit Jesus is. And if we are consistently and intentionally seeking the face of God, we have what we need to do that. And because God is life, He grows that. A natural consequence of growth is multiplication, thus discipleship. If there is truly room for Christ being made, there will be growth in discipleshipping disciples and those choosing to serve Him as a lifestyle.