Forget Church Growth, Aim for Church Health

A healthy baby grows, so it is with a healthy church. My doctoral project was entitled "Breaking Barriers: Training Leaders to be Barrier Breaking Leaders." The thesis of the project was that the church that Jesus established was meant to grow and the reason many churches do not are the barriers that we consciously and unconsciously put up to keep it from growing. These can be as small as lacking a sense of vision to insisting on a particular agenda that we have.

I was encouraged on this subject by a recent Pastor's Toolbox article by Rick Warren. Here is what Rick said:

FORGET CHURCH GROWTH, AIM FOR CHURCH HEALTH

Church health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they’re healthy. You don’t have to make them grow – it’s just natural for living organisms. As a parent, I didn’t have to force my three children to grow. They naturally grew up. As long as I removed the hindrances, such as poor nutrition or an unsafe environment, their growth was automatic.

If my children had not grown up, something would have been terribly wrong. I would have done whatever it took to discover the disease and correct it. I wouldn’t have remained passive, spouting clichés about faithfulness, or wanting “quality not quantity” in my children.

The same principle is true for the church. Since the church is a living organism, it’s natural for it to grow if it’s healthy. The church is a Body, not a business – an organism, not an organization. It’s alive. If a church is not growing, it is dying.

Rick Warren, Pastor's Toolbox, May 8, 2013