Page 3040 – Christianity Today (2024)

In almost every consultation I conduct through my company, the Rainer Group, and in almost every church I research, the issue of assimilation arises. "If we could just keep the people who join our church, our attendance would be twice as high," church leaders often lament. Is there a "secret" to retention? Is there some type of process that can close the back door?

While there is neither a secret nor a neatly-packaged process, there are four key principles to membership retention and involvement. Our research has shown that if a church improves in all four of these areas, assimilation will likely improve, and often dramatically improve.

Many times when I speak I am given a stool upon which to sit. Since I usually speak for a lengthy time, I appreciate a stool where I give my fallen arches an occasional break. These wooden stools have four legs. Most of the time the legs are balanced and even. Sometimes one leg is off balance, causing a wobbly stool. But if any one of the legs was missing, the stool would immediately collapse.

Assimilation is built on four key principles. Our research had not been able to identify any one principle as more important than the others. We do know, however, that a church weak in one of the areas will have some degree of assimilation problems.

The first principle is expectation. A few years ago, our research team conducted a two-year study of churches with effective assimilation rates. We were surprised to learn that one of the key commonalities among the churches was a sense of expectation of members and prospective members.

Church membership was not the placement of a name on a roll; the clear expectation was that the member was to make a difference through the ministries of the church. Giving was not touted as optional but expected among church members. And membership or inquirer classes were often the place where these expectations were most clearly articulated.

The second principle is ministry involvement. If a church member does not become meaningfully involved in some type of ministry in the church, his or her drop-out chances increase dramatically. But the church leadership cannot delay in moving new members to places of ministry. If more than six months lapses between the points of new membership to ministry involvement, the person will likely be already moving toward inactivity in the life of the church.

Probably the most often cited principle is relationships. What many church leaders do not realize is that the development of these relationships with new members best takes place before the member joins.

If the new member has no relationship with a church member when he or she joins the church, it is exceedingly difficult to create relationships. Such is the reason why it is critically important for church members to become highly intentional about developing relationships with unchurched persons before that person ever visits the church.

The fourth of the principles is small-group involvement. There are many venues for such involvement: discipleship groups, home cell groups, ministry teams, and choirs and praise teams, to name a few. Our research shows that the most effective assimilation group is the Sunday school, which is the open-ended small group that typically meets on the church campus. A person involved in a Sunday school class is five times more likely to be active in the church five years later, than a person who attends worship services alone.

These principles are not mutually exclusive. Indeed they often complement or even support one another. But they are all critical to the assimilation and discipleship health of the church.

How is your church being strategic about keeping each of the four legs balanced and strong? What is taking place with intentionality to monitor progress in these four areas? Conceptually, the process looks simple. In reality, it is often laborious and never-ending.

But, in God's power, these four principles have been used by thousands of churches across America to close the back door.

In our consultations, we often check the strength of each of the four legs of the stool, and we get an immediate, and usually accurate, assessment of assimilation in the church. Our desire is to help churches win more people to Christ.

But it is also our desire to see these new converts and new church members become truly effective disciples for Christ. These four principles often accomplish that goal and help the church to close the back door even more tightly.

Thom S. Rainer is dean of the Billy Graham School at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The author of 14 books, he also serves as president of the Rainer Group and Church Central Associates.

Copyright © 2003 by Dr. Thom Rainer. Used by permission. www.ChurchCentral.com

As l drove to the youth meeting, my mind was in a scramble. What am I going to do for my talk tonight? I wondered. I had led many meetings since becoming a volunteer youth leader, but this week I’d gotten behind and hadn’t prepared. And now nothing was coming. The closer I got, the more anxious I felt.

Inside I was tired, bone tired. Is this the way autumn leaves feel before they drop off the trees? Between a job and school and this ministry, I didn’t have time to spend with friends. And I wasn’t taking time to read the Bible, pray, or do anything to deepen my spiritual life. I was drying up. The program seemed so exciting when I first became involved, but now it had become burdensome. Where had I gone wrong? How did I so quickly lose my first feelings of euphoria? What could I do about my fatigue and the sense that I was “weary in well-doing”?

Leaders in a church face many barriers to long term involvement and effectiveness, but I’m convinced, after many years as both a lay leader and pastor, that there are three main ones: fatigue, conflict, and disillusionment. Along the way, however, I’ve also learned some practical ways to overcome them.

Fighting fatigue

My fatigue as a youth leader stemmed from a positive source: I wanted to do something worthwhile. But in my strong sense of commitment, I had neglected to do some of the following:

Ask questions. We should find out as much as we can about the role we are undertaking. How many meetings a month are expected – not only with the specific program, but also with any peripheral activities? How much flexibility is allowed if an unavoidable job or family commitment comes up? A critical question is “What resources can I draw on for help, and who will train me?” Too often as volunteers we get the “deep-water training program” – sink or swim on your own.

Consider a conditional commitment. We might ask to try on the role for size to see if we are really suited to participate long term. We need to beware the “we can’t get anyone else, so we really need you to volunteer” trap. Maybe there are some good reasons no one else would do the job.

Look for relationships. With rare exception, God does not expect us to minister alone. We need time with peers. Sharing program leadership with a friend is one good way to deepen a relationship.

Monitor priorities. We may be the persons with the gifts, experience, or possibilities for growth that God wants to use. In obedience to Christ’s nudging we can respond enthusiastically to the call for help. But we must realize that it is not the divine plan that we get so involved that we lose touch with our Source. The work of the ministry is not more important than the personal preparation we need through prayer, Scripture reading, and other spiritual disciplines.

Containing conflict

In the middle of the routine business of our church council, Jess (not his real name) began to criticize sharply Larry’s work. “You didn’t follow the stewardship plan,” he charged. “You haven’t followed through on your commitments, and you don’t have enough people following you to pull off this program.” A numbed silence settled over the council.

As a matter of fact, Larry had already helped raise 8 percent more than last year’s record stewardship campaign. Why the bitter, unfair criticism? I wondered. Is Jess jealous because Larry raised more money than he did as last year’s chairman? Did they have some falling out in their business dealings? How can such demoralizing words come from one who is normally optimistic and compassionate?

It came as no surprise when Larry resigned two weeks later – not only as the stewardship chair, but also as a member of the trustee board, which had planned to elect him as its chairman. Some time later, I met Larry for lunch to see how he was feeling since the blowout. He was more calm but still hurt and angry about the incident. “I will never, never serve on a church board or committee again!” he said. Nor did he intend to speak to Jess again unless absolutely necessary.

I went away saddened at the loss of ministry by a gifted person. Larry had not abandoned his faith, but his spiritual growth had been severely hampered by Jess’s sharp words.

To be attacked when you are trying your best is utterly demoralizing. Most of us have enough conflict in our lives that we don’t want more at church. Yet conflict is inevitable. It’s been said that wherever two or three are gathered, you’re sure to have a fight!

I’ve never found a better solution to conflict than Jesus’ advice (in Matt. 18) first to deal directly and privately with the one who offends you, then to involve others if necessary, and to keep on forgiving (seventy times seven). The problem is not that we don’t understand the Matthew 18 process but that we don’t have the courage to follow it. So instead we follow Matthew 18 in reverse! We tell a lot of people about our grievances, looking for allies. Only as a last resort do we confront directly the one who has offended us.

I can understand that. I dislike conflict, and often I try to avoid facing my antagonist. But I’ve seen that avoidance creates even worse conflicts. Only when we go directly to the person can we solve the problem.

For a while, I couldn’t figure out a conflict I seemed to be having with another man at the church. I wasn’t trying to be competitive, but I felt a sense of competition between us. I didn’t know what I was doing to create the negative response.

I told a friend about the situation, and he asked, “What does it feel like to have two young bulls butting heads? Each has strong opinions; each feels the other person doesn’t understand him.” I realized I felt misunderstood and taken advantage of. And I was afraid of the conflict and of losing my power in the situation. Gradually, as I talked with my friend over the next week, I began to see how I had been insensitive to this man.

Several days after that, I walked into the man’s office. He didn’t invite me to sit down but asked, “What do you want?”

I closed the door and said, “I need to … I need to apologize to you.”

His eyes opened wide. “What for?”

I confessed to him the things I had been doing wrong in the relationship. While our conversation didn’t ease completely the tension in the relationship, it stopped the under-the-table hostility that was moving us apart.

Dealing with disillusionment

A third reason people wear out in church work is disillusionment. We come to a committee meeting with higher expectations than we might otherwise have, because the meeting is in a church.

Sometimes I hear, “I thought the church was a pretty neat place until I got involved on this committee.” Lay people discover the pastor is human, with idiosyncrasies and irritating quirks. Pastors feel lay people, who may be highly skilled in their business or professional lives, forget everything they know when they volunteer for a church task. No one seems to know how to get things done. And everyone assumes everyone else must know how decisions get made, because they haven’t the foggiest notion.

Because there is no clear “bottom line,” no objective criterion for success, people cannot tell if they are winning or losing. So they live in the ambiguity of church committee life feeling like losers. It’s enough to make a person want to quit. I have watched too many friends in our congregation quietly wait until the end of their terms of office and then fade away, some to another church where they hope life might be less complicated and not so disillusioning.

A few understandings about the nature of the church have helped me when I’ve begun to feel disillusioned.

Each church is a voluntary association to which people come with a host of expectations. It is difficult to get things done because people come when they want to and come with differing motivations. But a common mission can keep us working together, one established not by a board or committee but by Jesus Christ. The church is commanded to “go into all the world and preach the gospel” and has been directed to “love one another” as it operates. The purpose of the church is clear: to go and to grow in love.

If I’m disillusioned, it’s sometimes because I’ve forgotten that this is our major goal. Or we’re working on something that doesn’t seem to contribute directly to it. Or not all the people in our group are yet aware of it. But keeping the mission in mind moves us forward. The church discovers its real life when it gives itself away to the world.

Second, the resources available to the church are not entirely dependent on the resources of its members. God’s Spirit has promised sufficient power to accomplish the significant work of the body of Christ. It is so easy to get discouraged and disillusioned by an apparent lack of resources to meet seemingly overwhelming needs. But if we do God’s work in God’s way, we will have God’s provisions, which will sometimes come from unexpected sources.

That means we need to stay close to our Leader and Provider. If we see every project as Christ’s work, we’ll have reason to hope when others might become discouraged and quit. And armed with a realistic understanding of human nature, we’ll be forgiving of others and ourselves if ours isn’t the super efficient group we had originally dreamed. We’ll begin to realize that how we do a task is as important as what we accomplish, and that if we do it God’s way, he’ll work with us and through us.

I met George on a men’s retreat. During a long walk with him, I learned that he was bitter over a sharp conflict he’d had with his pastor. He had seriously considered leaving the congregation and found it hard to worship or even pray. After some soul searching, he sought to learn what God could teach him through this experience.

George became convinced his disillusionment did not negate his role in Jesus’ mission. He looked for some way to offer his time and gifts to others. Despite the fact he was going through difficult times, George volunteered to meet weekly with some inmates at a federal prison sixty miles away who were interested in Bible study. George had no theological training and no experience in prison ministry. But he sensed God’s leading, which was confirmed by friends in the church.

For more than ten years, George went faithfully to that prison each week, even in bitter cold and snow, or on hot ‘ muggy days. He involved scores of people (including some ex-offenders) in the ministry.

George’s ministry resulted in not only the healing and reconciliation of hundreds of prisoners, but his own healing as well. George’s faith grew, and his leadership effectiveness far surpassed what it would have been had he remained a sullen, disillusioned victim of church conflict. When I talked with George recently, he actually thanked God for the negative experience that was used for unexpected good against amazing odds.

When I become fatigued, embroiled in conflict, or disillusioned, I think of George. Rather than wear out, I want to be like him and continue to work out my faith.

Gary W. Downing is executive minister of Colonial Church of Edina (Minnesota).

The gap between what Americans say they believe and what they do is great and growing. The same is true of Christians. Values don’t always translate into actions.

A group of Christian leaders known for their skill in discipling, and headed by Texan Bob Buford, is developing a tool, the Christian Life Profile, to assess the spiritual maturity of a church’s attenders and aid the pastor in leading the church to deeper and more active faith.

LEADERSHIP editor-at-large Kevin A. Miller joined the group at the end of a two-day planning session. He brought to the discussion another pastor, whose West Coast church is making disciples in unusual places.

Around the table:

Larry Crabb, a licensed Christian psychotherapist for more than 25 years, is currently on faculty at Colorado Christian University. Crabb’s newest book is about the church, The Safest Place on Earth: Where People Connect and Are Forever Changed.

Ken Fong is senior pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Rosemead, California, a multicultural congregation that ministers throughout Los Angeles.

Randy Frazee pastors Pantego Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas. His is the pilot church for the Christian Life Profile Project.

George Gallup, Jr., regularly surveys the nation on politics and religion. His new book, with Timothy Jones, explores The Next American Spirituality.

Dallas Willard, former pastor and now philosophy professor at the University of Southern California, is the author of Spirit of the Disciplines and more recently The Divine Conspiracy.

Can you measure spiritual maturity? You’d be the one to ask first, George.

Gallup: In my experience there are four markers: beliefs, practices, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those indicators tell you whether a person has a transforming, integrated faith or just a statement of faith. The test is in the action. The deeper one goes—from belief to lifestyle—the more obvious are the markers.

Crabb: But there’s still a mystery about it. I would want to preserve a little mystery in our attempts to measure.

Fong: A Chinese philosopher once said, “If I ask you to describe how much you love your wife and you actually can, then I don’t believe you do.” If you can quantify something so exactly, that’s not capturing the whole thing.

I’m learning over time that the real issue is the heart, and even though we need some markers, the heart is hard to measure.

If I’m to make disciples, I not only have to preach about the subject, but I’m also responsible for moving people from point A to point B.
—Randy Frazee

Crabb: When you emphasize the markers exclusively, the danger is that people then can check themselves off as mature with a certain smugness. But if maturity is thought of as a relational concept and an ongoing process, then you never get to a point where you say, “I am now mature.”

Frazee: On the other hand, one danger of not assessing the maturity of our congregation is that we’ll then evaluate only the ABC’s: attendance, buildings, and cash. Typically we set goals only in those areas.

While we have to be very careful in what we measure, we need input as to where our congregation is struggling. We surveyed our leaders on the fruit of the Spirit a couple of years ago. The number one issue in our church was self-control.

Did that surprise you?

Frazee: Surprise me? It scared me.

It makes you not want to have a board meeting! (laughter)

Frazee: But it also excited me. This information gave me something to work toward other than increasing attendance. I’m now working toward life transformation. That is intensely powerful.

Last fall we took our first annual survey on the spiritual maturity of our church membership. Taking that information into our planning retreat in January, for the first time in the history of Pantego Bible Church, we were not just asking “Are we experiencing 10 percent numerical growth?” Now we’re looking at “Where is our congregation spiritually? Where are they struggling?”

Gallup: I think you’re absolutely right to do that. I’ve known only a few churches where there has been a serious attempt to assess the level of spiritual maturity.

It’s rare?

Gallup: Yes. The giant assumption is that because people are there, they are growing; that because the church is growing, the people are growing in their journey. The better question is “What’s going on on the inside of the church that’s growing?” It’s not enough to collect a crowd. You’ve got to make disciples.

Willard: The alternative way to measure church growth is bigger Christians.

Frazee: In 2 Peter 1 are listed a number of character qualities of a follower of Christ. Verse 8 says, “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That suggests that there is a quantifiable component to these virtues. There is evidence. The mystery of discipleship may not be defined, but in some ways it can be measured, and should be.

So we have consensus that maturity can to some extent be measured. So what do we measure? What does a mature believer look like?

Frazee: I’d begin with the words of Jesus—love God, love neighbor. We’re trying to develop a corporate understanding of this so that faith isn’t just an individual thing.

Then I would examine some of the core beliefs, practices and virtues that Christians disciples are called to, and ask people to identify how they are doing against those benchmarks.

Find the revolutionaries, a few people who, like you, are not happy with the status quo. God has already called out to them.
—Ken Fong

Willard: The New Testament concept of the disciple is very simple. I am someone’s disciple if I am with him learning to be like him. The word I prefer most is apprentice because of the applied nature of the concept. If you look at Jesus with his disciples, you see that’s exactly what he did.

Fong: Right now I’m preaching that you can’t be a Christian if you’re not a disciple. And that flies in the face of so much that we’ve been taught.

Willard: We have accepted the idea that you can be a Christian forever yet never become a disciple. We have enough trouble with “Christian”—then when we allow disciple to stand in contrast to Christian, it makes everything cloudy. The concept has become confused.

Fong:It might be easier to hold up a picture of a disciple than to define it.

We have a group, mostly InterVarsity alumni, who moved into South Central Los Angeles three years ago. I call ’em “ruined for Jesus.” They’re completely committed.

They had a vision to start making friends with the people. Now they’re tutoring kids in the neighborhood, and they’ve opened the opportunity to everyone in our church. We have people in their seventies who are captivated by the whole thing. They are seeing the revolutionaries—disciples actually living out their values.

It’s stimulating, for me and for our church.

Crabb: One of the points Dallas makes so strongly is that discipleship is for everybody. It’s not something reserved for the super-saint while the rest can do as they choose. In a similar vein, discipling is for everybody. We’re all disciple makers. Ordinary people—by virtue of being Christian—have an unusual power to make an incredible difference in somebody else’s life.

I think of Hebrews 10:24: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” The verse just after that is “Make sure you don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” Many people think that verse means show up for church Sunday morning. I don’t think it means that at all.

I think it means that we get together in powerful community. On the basis of the New Covenant, we draw near to God. Then together we stimulate each other to love and good deeds. The word for “stimulate,” I’m told, literally means to create a fever.

Discipling is fundamentally a community function—relating to each other in ways to pursue the question: How can I take the little flame in you and fan it into a bonfire?

What is the church missing here?

Crabb: Most of us settle for congeniality and never really connect. We can’t just settle for pleasant relationships laced with spiritual words.

I believe in an appetite model of sanctification, not just an accountability model. When you and I get together, we can stimulate the life of Christ within, and your appetite for God becomes stronger because of our time together. The appetite must be stirred, and then we hold each other accountable as to how that appetite gets nourished.

What makes discipling especially hard for you as a pastor?

Frazee: If I’m to make disciples, I not only have to preach about the subject, but I’m also responsible for moving people from point A to point B. So discipleship is not just something I can talk about. Getting people to take steps forward is a whole other level of commitment.

How do you get people to take those steps?

Frazee: Well, I’m not just giving out an inspiring idea. I want people to perspire over the idea. I’m looking for transformation. It’s a lot easier to throw out the idea and say, “Do whatever you want with this.”

But discipling is mentoring them through the process. That’s a lot stickier, a lot messier than a sermon.

Fong: Yes, I can give great sermons, but my congregation looks at me and says, “Okay, what do you do with your time? If you’re not doing it, you’re just talking about it.”

Did you find a way to live it?

Fong: I was praying about this some years ago. And God opened it up to me that South Central Los Angeles is a mission field. We teach that every member is a missionary; that’s how discipleship is lived out.

So I’ve been going down there once a month for about eight years to an untouched group—drug addicts and the liberal Asian-American activists who work with them.

Some have told me, “Rev. Fong, we expected you to go away after three years. But you keep coming back.” And I bring lay people with me. That’s my way of discipling. And I see tremendous transformation.

When they’re sitting at a small table teaching about Mary Magdalene to a group of women and they ask, “How many of you have been prostitutes?” and all the women raise their hands, suddenly the pretense is gone. My people say, “We can minister to this crowd because they’re the people that Jesus liked to hang out with.”

We have a pastoral intern who is thinking about going to seminary. We were talking with one woman, a Korean-American from a wealthy suburban family. She looks like a model, but she had attempted suicide five times.

“I’m tired of trying to kill myself,” she said. “Every time before I’m dead someone saves me.” Everybody wept through her story.

I asked the intern afterward, “As that woman was sharing her pain, were you mentally flipping through all your nice, standard answers that you would give to hurting people?”

She said, “Yeah.”

“And what did you do with those?”

“I threw them all away.”

I said, “Thus endeth the lesson.” If the gospel we believe and teach cannot speak to these people at their level, then it’s worthless.

My church members from the L.A. suburbs hang out with these people. They become friends. It’s changing them. It’s changing me. I’m not just teaching discipleship, I’m learning discipleship.

What kind of preaching builds disciples?

Willard: I realized early in my preaching career that I was not preaching what Jesus preached. That led to years of trying to find out what it was he was saying.

As I studied the Gospels, I saw that it was incredibly liberating and strengthening to people to receive what Jesus taught. The preaching of the kingdom of God is, I think, at the heart of making disciples. Pastors in some circles say to me, “We preach that all the time.” But if you listen, you know they aren’t preaching it. The kingdom of God is not good news to them. I think every preacher would say, “I want to preach good news.”

What makes the presentation of the kingdom not good news?

Willard: Well, it comes across as a standard of living you’re supposed to attain. We have a lot of talk about grace, but when you look at the concrete form that it takes in institutional life, it’s legalism. And it’s backbreaking, and it is not good news. The gospel as I preached it as a young man was what I now call the gospel of sin management. And it leads to either self-condemnation or self-righteousness.

Sin certainly needs to be managed—I don’t quarrel with that—but that’s not the central project. The central project is life, eternal life. John 17:3 is very clear about what eternal life is: it’s an interactive relationship with God. Discipleship, as it is often taught, easily degenerates into legalism—look at the later followers of George Fox, John Wesley, or St. Francis.

Too often grace is a detached abstract theological concept, some arrangement in heaven called “unmerited favor.” Where you need unmerited favor is at street level.

Fong: I teach it this way: there are two parts of the Good News. First, everyone’s a rat. There are no squirrels. I told my congregation, “Some of you think you’re just a cute little squirrel sinner. Who hates a squirrel?” I said, “Have I got news for you. Everyone’s a rat. God doesn’t see any squirrels.”

When I said this at the drug rehab place—”How many feel like a rat?”—everybody raised their hands right away. At seminary chapel, it was like, hmmm, some of the professors weren’t sure. I said, “Some of you are raising your hands because you know I’m theologically correct, but you don’t feel like a rat.” I said, “Until you know that you’re a rat, it’s not good news to find out you’re not the only rat in the room.”

I said, “Some of us are rats because we’re not convinced we’re rats. We look around and think that someone else is a bigger rat, that someone else needs the cross more than I do.

“Only when you know you’re a rat are you ready for the second part: God is not an exterminator.”

Whew! That’s good news!

Willard: The primary point in discipleship is grace—given to people who don’t deserve it. The surprising thing is that, with God, there just seems to be no limit to how much he will forgive. That’s the attitude, I think, that enables us to step out of the culture of shame and begin to grow as disciples.

Crabb: That is crucial because most of us think if we’re going to get over our shame-based culture then we have to preach a theology of self-esteem and minimize our theology of sin. Exactly the reverse is true.

How do you present that in a church?

Fong: For me, I have to be forthcoming myself. I have to share my failures. The hardest part for me is sharing current ones. It’s easy to admit “Oh, yeah, when I was in college I failed in this way.” Everyone nods.

But I know deep down that they’re not hearing the real one that I’m struggling with right now. So that’s always a battle within myself. But even to talk about that battle, I think, helps create an atmosphere where people understand it’s not easy to grow in Christ.

Frazee: I have been very open with my home group. I helped create the spiritual maturity assessment tool, then it was my turn to take the test.

Physician, heal thyself.

Frazee:I felt like I was doing my own appendectomy. (laughter)

I asked my wife, my 15-year-old daughter, and a close associate to give me feedback on how they thought I evidenced the fruit of the Spirit. I was encouraged in some areas, but all three said I struggled in one area.

Next I had to take their assessments to my home group. My heart was pounding. I shared the evaluations. I began to weep. And I’ll never forget it. The members said, “Well, Randy, we’ve known this about you all along.” Then they gathered around me and they prayed. And they pointed me to the discipline of silence.

And now it’s out. Out in the context of a safe community where I can deal with it prayerfully. And I don’t have to say it again.

Crabb: Many people go through their entire lives never feeling safe in any relationship. And that’s a violation of the gospel. I would suspect that the issues that are most intense within people never come up in small groups. Therefore, the issues that are strongest in my soul are never dealt with in the presence of other Christians because there’s an absence of safety.

We need to examine the passions that are ruling within us as we engage each other. Is there really the passion of one upsmanship? Or looking for something witty to say? Or of playing it safe so that nobody could possibly reject me?

Gallup: If you can get at what people are most fearful of sharing, particularly in a small group, that is a great step toward healing. Everybody is in bondage to something. It may be chemical, pride, hedonism, narcissism, you name it. As it’s said, nobody needs a disease but everybody needs a cure.

The pastor who reads this interview is busy, somewhat stressed, has a sermon pending, and now we’re asking them stop all that to reconsider discipleship.

Willard:My first need is to be a disciple myself: to love as Jesus loved, to serve as Jesus served. Second, I am to make disciples, teach others to do the same. This is why we’re here. If we find that yoke is not easy, we’d better check our busyness.

Frazee:As a pastor it’s extremely easy to give 100 percent of your time to things that, at the end of the day, don’t have a whole lot to do with the mission that Christ gave us. It would be a refreshing solution to our busyness to throw out those things that don’t have anything to do with discipleship.

Gallup: Pastors and disciples should put everything to the test. As Paul said in Thessalonians, put all things to the test to see what is good. Does it bring you closer to Jesus Christ? Every program, every effort, every ministry in the church should be looked at in the light of that question. Throw out everything that doesn’t.

Takes courage.

Gallup: I’m sure it does.

Willard: But that’s the only way forward.

Fong: It sounds like we’re spouting revolution here, but that shouldn’t surprise us. I would recommend finding the revolutionaries in the church. Not all of them are board members. Find a few people who, like you, are not happy with the status quo. God has already called out to them. And they’re just waiting for you to encourage them.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Your doctor says you’re healthy, no signs of disease; blood pressure andweight are within normal limits.

The fitness instructor says you’re in terrible shape, resting pulse and body-fatpercentage are way above normal; flexibility is poor, and you just flunkedthe treadmill test.

If both can be right, what does it mean to be healthy? And following thesame analogy, what does it mean for a church to be healthy? What signsindicate a congregation is both free of disease and spiritually fit?

Leadership set out to answer those questions. We talked with a varietyof pastors and leaders and gathered diagnostic tools and checklists, bothdescriptive and prescriptive.

We did not find just one answer, but we did find the many responses revealing.So here, with contradictions and redundancies intact, are various ways toidentify and maintain a healthy church.

Finding the Focal Pointby Tracy Keenan

Church health is a matter of focus: a focus on Christ, not the church. Ourfocus determines whether we have a survival mentality or a service mentality.

If the primary emphasis is on maintaining our building, or on getting morepeople or money, it’s a clue that our focus is on survival.

A willingness to serve is the greatest indicator of a Christ-ward focus.It’s a sign that faith is strong and the people are open to the workingsof the Spirit.

It shows up as a ready, easy smile. It’s a willingness to reach out and greetsomebody whom you don’t know well or whom you’ve never seen before. Partof my responsibility as a leader is to have and serve out of that joy.

I heard someone in a meeting say, “How can we go beyond talking about thisand actually do something?” That willingness to help in a tangibleway can come about only with a servant-focus.

A focus on Christ allows us to support one another, even in our differences.I was called to this church to develop a contemporary worship service. Weadded a third service that was, stylistically, quite different.

Yet I’ve had a surprisingly large number of people say to me, “This contemporaryworship is not my cup of tea, but if there’s any way I can help support this,let me know.”

That was a healthy thing to say. It shows people’s respect and appreciationfor our tradition, but also their unwillingness to make it into an idol.You won’t see that apart from a clear focus on Christ.

Tracy Keenan is associate pastor of Southminster PresbyterianChurch in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It’s the Structure. Period.by Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr.

The American church is unhealthy because it has an unbiblical structure.By denying this and continuing to live under the illusion that the basicproblem of the church is something other than ecclesiology, we have a chroniccondition.

If we look into the New Testament, we recognize that, apart from community,the body of Christ cannot effectively present itself. Yet the need for communityis something that we avoid, and that makes us unhealthy. Jesus lived in acommunity of twelve disciples. The 12 became 120, then 1,200 in a day’s time,and the first thing they did was to break the crowd up into communities thatwent from house to house.

Around the world today—far more so overseas—healthy church life is builtaround cells, basic Christian communities that allow the people of God tojoin together, responsible to and for each other. The true cell church doesnot see the cell as a small group attached to a larger blob of protoplasmcalled church membership. The true cell church is a community of Christiansnumbering usually no more than fifteen who are the body of Jesus Christ.

Here we find people who care about each other, accepting accountability andresponsibility to and for one another, exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit.In the New Testament, the church is called the oikos, the householdof God. The early church was composed of household churches.

Then, by breaking into the broken lives of unbelievers around them, thesecells show the presence of Christ. In that context, just like in Acts 2,the unbeliever says, “Wow, God is certainly among you,” and he falls on hisface and is saved.

The individualism that pervades American society perceives the world in relationto “me” rather than to “us.” Evangelical Christians have a great concernfor personal salvation, but we’ve been particularly prone to lose sight ofthe corporate dimensions of New Testament Christianity. Pure, basic faithnever ends up as rugged individualism. Rather, it ends up living in a communitywhere I am responsible to and for my brother and where I recognize I cannever have salvation from the power of sin in this world if I live apartfrom the community of God’s people.

Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr., recently retired as president ofTouch Outreach Ministries in Houston, Texas.

Honest to GodSteve Sjogren

We equate health with authenticity. Healthy churches are led by pastors whoare real, who tell their honest, heartfelt stories. Not unwisely, but theydisclose.

I have Attention Deficit Disorder, and I don’t make a big secret of it. Ihave a bumper sticker on my car that says, HONK IF YOU’RE ON RITALIN. Mychurch knows I’ve been in long-term counseling for depression. They knowI’ve been married for eighteen years, and we’ve had fifteen years of happymarriage. We embrace our humanity here.

We try to help a bunch of serious, overcommitted people rediscover fun. Wehelp people create boundaries. We help them face their fears. Right afterChristmas, I always do a sermon series on how to overcome depression ordifficulty. This year’s theme was “Growing beyond Future Fear.” The futurefear for many is poverty. For others, it’s loneliness. So how do you getready for those things? Well, you develop a relationship with God and peoplenow.

Another characteristic of health is being a “real life” church. A real-lifechurch teaches the Bible in such a way that we equip people in their families,work, and relationships.

We exist to train people to live life effectively. If you approach churchfrom that angle, then everybody—old Christians, new Christians, soon-to-beChristians—are going to benefit, because who doesn’t need to learn to livelife?

Steve Sjogren is pastor of Vineyard Community Church inCincinnati, Ohio.

The Cause-Driven Churchby Erwin McManus

The early church existed with a dynamic tension: it was both expanding andconsolidating—growing and unifying. The Bible tells us that first centurybelievers “shared everything in common” and that “the church was being addedto day by day.” We want our church to live in this same tension.

This tension is illustrated by two biblical images—the body of Christ andthe army of God. The body of Christ is centered on community; the army ofGod is centered on cause.

Healthy community flows out of a unified cause—not the other way around.Jesus called his disciples and said, “Follow me. I’ll make you fishers ofmen.” This was not an offer of community. “Follow me and I will give yousomething worthy of giving your life to” is a statement of cause. But theneat thing is, when they came to the cause, they found community like theynever knew could exist. That’s the power of the church.

One danger of the American church is that we often try to offer people communitywithout cause. Without cause, you’re just another civic organization. Youdon’t have life transformation.

Jesus said, “I have come to the world to seek and to save that which is lost.”The cause of Christ is accomplished by expanding the kingdom of God.

Communicating the gospel in a postmodern context can make us feel forcedto compete with the entertainment industry. You might be able to competeif you have millions of dollars and that level of expertise. Most of us don’t.We have only one advantage that neither Hollywood nor mtv has. We have thepresence and power of the living God!

Why in the world would we eliminate God’s power from our core strategy andactually move to a deficit rather than to an advantage?

Erwin McManus is pastor of The Church on Brady in Los Angeles,California.

Jesus’ Surprising Definitionby Lee Eclov

In the second and third chapters of John’s Revelation, we find the lettersdictated to the seven churches. Here, in a uniquely direct way, we have theLord’s assessment of health indicators for local congregations.

What strikes me is that some of the usual indicators—evangelism, stewardship,church planting, attendance—are not evident. In a quick scan of these twochapters, the indicators that stand out are:

—holiness and dealing with sin.

—endurance—being “overcomers.” The Lord praises churches that face corporatechallenges with vital faith. That’s an idea I hadn’t thought much about,but churches do face difficult times—a rash of deaths or unemployment ornatural disaster.

—confronting evil and heresy in the church.

See Also

Page 4251 – Christianity Today

—exclusive love for Christ.

—corporate growth in ministry—”you are doing more now than before.”

—love for one another. This is evident in the specifics of how the Christiansare called to relate to each other—dealing with sin, earnestness of purpose,etc.

More careful study will probably refine this list considerably. Interactingwith a text like this would be an important exercise for church leaders seekingto discern the health of their congregations.

Lee Eclov is pastor of Chippewa Evangelical Free Churchin Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

Health CheckupStephen Macchia, president of the Evangelistic Association of New England,worked with colleagues to develop ten telltale signs of church health:

“A healthy church is prayerful in all of the following aspects of churchlife and ministry, is reliant upon God’s power and the authority of his Word,and values …

1. God-exalting worship.2. Gempowering presence.3. An outward focus.4. Servant-leadership development.5. Commitment to loving/caring relationships.6. Learning and growing in community.7. Personal disciplines.8. Stewardship and generosity.9. Wise administration and accountability.10. Networking with the regional church.”

(First of two parts; click here to read Part 2)

Copyright © 1997 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200or contact us.Summer, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Page 34

Churches are getting smaller and larger”—that’sthe analysis of some who read church demographics. As the culture shifts, the two survivors seem to be large, full-service churches, and small, intimate-family churches.
Many books and seminars trumpet churches that are large. Fewer provide help for churches that are small.
Leadership asked three veterans of small churches to give honest and practical answers to questions such as “What does growth mean when it may cause a church to lose what is most precious to it—its family feeling?”
The candid discussion came from:

• Kathy Callahan-Howell, who planted and has ministered for twelve years in a small, urban church: Winton Community Free Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Gary Farley, a former bi-vocational pastor, who served in the Town and Country department of the Home Mission Board (Southern Baptist) for thirteen years. He is director of the Center for Rural Church Leadership.
• Martin Giese, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and co-director of the Country Shepherds workshop, a training seminar for pastors of rural churches.

How do you define “small church”?

It’s overwhelming for a
smaller church when it
suddenly becomes the
“in” church; people feel
invaded
—Kathy Callahan-Howell.

Gary: The small church sees itself as a family. People are connected through ethnicity, vocation, or place. Often there are several generations.

People in small churches interact with each other outside of church—at the post office, at the Lions Club, at the turkey shoot, or the Friday-night football game. They drink coffee at the cafe in the morning before they go to work.

Martin: Which creates a climate of intimacy and a strong level of accountability that can be uncomfortable. It also makes evangelism difficult. How do you evangelize someone who has watched you go through your teen years—or watched your dad go through his teen years?

Kathy: In my denomination, a church of, say, two hundred is considered big. There’s a denominational factor in defining “small.”

I pastor in an urban neighborhood and, in one sense, just like a rural church, my people have lots of interaction with each other outside of church. But in contrast to Martin’s setting, in an urban setting, people in small churches have huge networks, so evangelism isn’t as hard.

Martin: Many people in a rural setting see themselves as a CEO; they are management, and the pastor may be viewed as labor.

Gary: Most older churches have developed bell cows—matriarchs and patriarchs who have carried them through difficult times. But then a lot of young pastors arrive with a kind of military mindset: “I’m ordained, I’m going to lead, and this old guy needs to get out of my way.”

In a small church, different people can lead parades around different things. Good leaders have sense enough to know when they need to be out front and when they need to be in the back somewhere. Over time, as people see you’re not there for your aggrandizement, more and more trust devolves to you.

So how do you reconcile your call to lead with the reality that you need to be given permission to lead?

Martin: I knew a pastor in a rural church in western Minnesota. He was delighted when, in the early part of his ministry, all his initiatives were passed in business meetings with no discussion. Then he was puzzled later when none of the decisions was implemented. He discovered that the real business meeting began after the official meeting adjourned. People would get cups of coffee, meet in the aisles of the church, review all the meeting decisions, and either ratify or nullify them.

He learned to work within that framework, but he initially thought that all those yes votes meant something.

The key word is “consensus.” The small church gravitates toward consensus and feels anxious if there isn’t at least a perception of consensus.

What does growth mean for a church whose identity is as a family?

Kathy: The family image still works: In a family there are children, and then those children get married and have children. That’s how a family grows.

Gary: Sometimes, though, when small churches grow, they get to a certain size and then fragment.

Martin: The key word is slowly. There’s a limit to how large a group can get and still preserve the family feel. That may be one reason small churches fight so fiercely not to grow.

Our church is situated in a rural area, but we use the term rurban, because the area draws a lot of retirees from urban communities. It’s about fifty-fifty between rural and urban people, and that creates tensions that affect nearly every decision we make—from whether to leave the lights on to how we develop ministry.

Kathy: It’s overwhelming for a smaller church when it suddenly becomes the “in” church—the sermons are good, the music is good, so it’s the happening place to be. People feel invaded. Growth can have a negative effect if the church suddenly receives an influx of people disgruntled from a church split or frustrated with their former church.

But in our case, we’re seeing slow growth, almost all of it from conversions. With that kind of growth, it’s much easier to envelop new people.

Martin: When a congregation I served grew from around fifty on a Sunday morning to seventy, an elderly lady said, “I just don’t know anyone around here anymore.” What she meant was “I no longer can catch up with everyone’s life on a Sunday morning.”

How do you respond to that concern?

Martin: I sat down with many of the older people and said, “A lot of things have happened here through the years, and we’re outgrowing this building. That’s not easy. But you know what? The Lord is answering your prayers. Isn’t it odd that an answer to prayer would bring some pain, some adjustment?”

Kathy: I accept that some churches need to be small—as long as people are coming to the kingdom, as long as there is spiritual regeneration. What isn’t healthy is for a church to say, “It’s okay to just be us and never reach out.”

Gary: I used to think that every small church ought to change and become a big suburban church. I don’t believe that anymore. I think there are people who fit best in a small church.

Sometimes those who fit best are eccentric people who wouldn’t feel as accepted in a larger setting. Do you ever worry that new people might be turned off by quirky members?

Martin: Sometimes you wonder whether you have enough functional people to establish an outreach. But I believe that God will bring people sufficient to accomplish what he wants to do.

Small-church pastors
don’t take one another seriously
—Martin Giese.

The elderly woman I mentioned, who said she didn’t know anyone anymore, had a nervous tic and was flighty.

Then I found out she had one son who served in Korea and never came home.For two years she didn’t know where he was. Then somehow, in the providenceof God, a guy found her, in a rural village in Minnesota, and told her hehad seen her son starve to death in a Korean prisoner-of-war camp.

Yet she wasn’t bitter at God; she loved Jesus.

Kathy: People who have a problem with a diverse group of members don’tbelong in my church. We have a multiracial church, which we set out to create.I want people to attend our church because they have a heart and can acceptpeople.

Our church has a gentleman who functions at a low level. One Sunday he couldn’tfind the hymn in the hymnal, and a woman, Sharon, walked up and stood besidehim through the entire song, holding the hymnal so he could sing with her.Then she went back to her seat.

I was so proud. Those are the people I want in my church.

What other things can a smaller church do especially well?

Gary: Endure. The life expectancy of a metropolitan church is aboutfifty years. Contrast that with a rural church whose life expectancy maybe centuries.

Recently I looked at a list of Southern Baptist churches that were in KansasCity in 1928—and practically none exist today. Those that have surviveddo so in name only, usually in a different location.

Kathy: Smaller churches can get a higher proportion of people involvedin ministry. I love all the hoopla about finding your gifts, and certainlyit’s easier to be energized when you’re working out of your giftedness, butthe reality of a small church is that some people are going to have to dostuff they’re not gifted to do.

Pastoring a small church in an age that glorifies bigness can makea minister feel small. What contributes to that feeling?

Martin: When a pastor doesn’t feel his peers take him seriously. Buteven we small-church pastors embrace that ethic. We don’t take one anotherseriously, either.

Another factor is the constant dripping of negative self-assessment by ourpeople: “Well, Pastor, we’re not much of a church, and you’re just the pastorfor us.” People don’t mean to denigrate their shepherd, but the effect isto shift your focus from what God has called you to do to the struggle ofthe church.

Gary: We’re generalists rather than specialists, and our society paysspecialists better. It puts a lot of pressure on a person to know abouteverything and be good at all things.

I see more and more churches being pastored by, out of necessity, bi-vocationalleaders. A person in that position can think, If I were really accomplishingsomething, my church ought to be able to support me full-time. Changing economicsare only going to exacerbate this problem.

How can a pastor help raise a church’s self-esteem?

Gary: One way is for the church to do something well and then celebratethat. It may not be great by the standards of First Church, but it’s goodfor your church—for example, a successful vacation Bible school. You buildon that sense of accomplishment.

Kathy: A small church has to focus—do one or two things well. Ifit tries to spread itself too thin, it won’t do anything well.

The attitude of the pastor makes a huge difference. The word that comes tomind is vision. People will catch it.

When we started our Free Methodist church, we inherited a few saints fromwhat used to be a United Methodist congregation. That church had died, andseveral women who joined with us caught the vision for our church plant.Today, they get so excited: “Oh, look at all these new people.”

It’s not that they’ll never feel discomfort, but they were able to get onboard.

Martin: You celebrate survival. Many pastors with ambition come toa place and say, “What have you people been doing here for forty years?”That’s a terrible mistake. The reality is, in some settings, survival isan achievement.

When we were going through our transition from the old to the new building,I interviewed our custodian on the platform. He was in his eighties. He hadhand-dug the basem*nt of the old church—with a shovel. When the young people,excited about leaving the old building, heard this guy talk about hand-diggingthe basem*nt, they suddenly understood what it was costing him to leave.The newcomers had a new reverence for the contributions of the old-timers,and the old-timers felt affirmed and ready to move on, even though that waspainful.

What does a smaller-church pastor have to change internally, forthe church to be able to grow?

Martin: Recognize the existing leaders.

We do ourselves and the kingdom a disservice when we conclude we’re the leaderswhen, in actuality, in every church there are people who are already leaders.Our credibility goes up as we recognize those leaders God has placed in thatchurch. Then, as time passes, they grant us more and more leadershipopportunities.

Kathy: As a church planter, I had to change from planter mode to pastormode—that was a crisis. While planting the church, nobody else was makingdecisions, because there wasn’t anybody else, so my husband and I made allthe decisions. Figuring out when it was time to shift into using other peoplewas hard.

Kathy, what has motivated you to stay at your church for twelveyears?

Kathy: Three reasons.

One is my family; my husband feels he’s where God wants him to be.

Another is a commitment to long-term ministry. We’re just beginning to reapfruit from seeds we’ve been sowing for years.

The third is I have outside interests such as writing that help me feel I’mpart of a larger picture.

Martin: During at least three periods when I was at one church, there were claw marks on my walls. Were it not for a sense of call and commitment, I would have cut and run. During those times, I started to learn about my motives for ministry.

“Just be faithful” is the philosophy of many smaller churches. How does a church measure its faithfulness?

Martin: I would say no church needs to be more than “just faithful.” But the question is, “Faithful to what?” Churches struggle and die when they persist in being faithful to the wrong things, such as to the program that worked in the late forties.

But being faithful isn’t a matter of large or small. We need biblically effective churches in every size range. In the kingdom of God, small and insignificant are two different things. There’s no such thing as an insignificant ministry in the kingdom of God.

Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.Spring 1998, Vol.XIX, No. 2, Page 111

I recently spent a fitful night unable to sleep because of the strong disagreement I knew we would be facing at the next day’s board meeting. A peacemaker by nature, I dread situations of conflict. Like many of us in ministry, I’m into conciliation, not confrontation. Why can’t we all just get along? Let’s find the win/win. Surely we can work something out so we can all be unified.

This wasn’t a case of misunderstanding. This was a case of board members clearly understanding the issues, but disagreeing on how to proceed.

Sure enough, the next morning saw a sharply divided board. Arguments were made, statements were countered. No one was attacked personally, but personal values and sensitivities clearly differed. When it came time to make a decision, the vote showed a serious division of the house.

I drove home somewhat discouraged—until I read the article in the September 2002 Harvard Business Review on “What Makes a Great Board Great.” Suddenly the situation was seen in an entirely different light.

The writer, Jeffery A. Sonnenfeld, looked at the recent meltdowns of corporate giants Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom, which have focused intense scrutiny on boards. Were those directors asleep at the switch? Or too closely tied to a corrupt management team? Or simply incompetent?

“It seems inconceivable that business disasters of such magnitude could happen without gross or even criminal negligence on the part of board members,” writes Sonnenfeld. He analyzes the makeup and the practices of the boards of these failed companies, and concludes, “A close examination of those boards reveals no broad pattern of incompetence or corruption. In fact, the boards followed most of the accepted standards of board operations.”

Sonnenfeld then explores the differences between boards that fail and those that keep their organization healthy. He lists a number of factors that did NOT make a difference, including: regular meeting attendance, equity involvement, board members’ skills and age, board size and committees, and independence.

While these factors are important, all were in place in the board structure of the titanic failures. What, then, is the secret to boards successfully guiding their organizations away from hidden disasters?

“What distinguishes exemplary boards,” writes Sonnenfield, “is that they are robust, effective social systems.” He lists five elements. Let me highlight the two that are most germane to church boards.

1. A climate of trust and candor. They share difficult information, and they can challenge one another’s conclusions coherently.
2. A culture of open dissent. “Respect and trust do not imply endless affability or absence of disagreement,” writes Sonnenfeld. “Rather they imply bonds among board members that are strong enough to withstand clashing viewpoints.”

Much has been written about the importance of “consensus building” in church life, and it’s an important goal. But too many boards short circuit the process. Differences are avoided. Disagreement is discouraged. Dissent is cut off.

If, out of a desire to avoid conflict and arrive at quick consensus, the board develops a habit of groupthink, the church is in danger. If a group suppresses honest dissent, they’ll likely end up with board members that conform but will be unable to steer clear of looming hazards.

Yes, there’s a difference between dissent and disloyalty. Board members who have a private agenda that conflicts with the mission of the church have difficulty being faithful and effective board members. But among those who are committed to the success of the church, there will be dissent. That’s a sign of health.

If you’ve served on a church board, you’ve probably endured some snoozers, listening to the perfunctory reports, at other times enjoyed the sweetness of like-mindedness, and at others sweated out the tension every bit as suspenseful as a bomb-squad trying to prevent an explosive issue from blowing up. Facing conflict, working with people who think you’re wrong on a future-shaping strategic decision is not as pleasant as like-minded unity. But koinonia isn’t just about consensus. Working through conflict is a test and a sign of health.

A climate of healthy dissent could have made a huge difference at Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom. Sonnenfeld concludes: “If a board is to truly fulfill its mission—to monitor performance, advise the CEO, and provide connections with a broader world—it must become a robust team, one whose members know how to ferret out the truth, challenge one another, and even have a good fight now and then.

To order a copy of the Harvard Business Review article, call 1-800-988-0886 and ask for reprint R0209H.

Money magazine annually rates the 300 best places in America to live. The ratings are based on climate, affordability, amenities, crime rate, public transportation, medical care, and other factors.

A similar approach has been taken with churches. Several major metropolitan newspapers regularly review churches. A religion writer makes an unannounced Sunday visit and analyzes everything from the sign on the outside to the sermon on the inside. Like restaurant and theater reviewers, some writers even use ratings, from one star (poor) to five stars (excellent).

Before protesting the impropriety of such ratings, reread Revelation 1–3 and recall the biblical reviews of the seven churches of Asia Minor.

Most people rate church atmosphere within the first 15 minutes of their first visit. They may not be able to fully explain how they reached their conclusions, but here’s what they’re likely looking for:

1. Sensing the presence of God

People expect God to come to church. I wish I could define what exactly people are looking for. I can’t. I guess it’s like beauty—you know it when you see it even though you can’t put it in words.

In Steve Macchia’s book Becoming a Healthy Church, he tells the story of a pizza delivery person walking into the new ministry center of Community Covenant Church in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Ten feet into the building, he stopped and asked, “What’s going on here? What’s this presence?”

Just as people can sense the presence of evil, they can sense the presence of God. For some who have never before experienced God, this single characteristic may determine their choice of church. Experiencing the supernatural is such a high priority in today’s culture that its importance dwarfs everything else in rating a church’s atmosphere.

Experiencing the supernatural dwarfs everything else as people rate a church’s atmosphere.

2. Others-centered

Some churches are self-centered. Some are others-centered. It’s not hard to tell the difference.

A friend recently entered a church lobby on a Sunday morning and walked straight into a donut-and-coffee hour. The people were talking and laughing and having a good time. They liked their church, but they never noticed her. After a few minutes of uncomfortable invisibility, she proceeded to the worship center where she sat in a pew alone for ten minutes. Finally an older lady sat and talked with her. The older lady also was new.

By contrast, an others-centered church is immediately interested in new people, what they need, and how the church can help. Such churches have a customized approach that changes with every person. The others-centered church talks little about its programs or its people unless that is truly helpful to the newcomer.

When our son was looking for a church in southern California, someone at one church told him, “You really should check out X Church across town with a singles ministry that would fit you better than anything we have to offer.”

I was impressed. I found that church attractive—truly others-centered.

3. Understandable terminology

Healthy churches tend to speak in terms everyone can understand. They make an effort to translate religious terminology into everyday language rather than to repeat clichés and jargon that constantly remind insiders they are insiders.

An insider knows that a revival is a series of weekday and weekend religious services, but an outsider might never guess. “Passing the peace” is a common part of many liturgies but sounds a lot like asking for more pizza at the dinner table. “The ushers will wait on us for the offering” could mean that they aren’t going to let anyone out until we all put something in. The most alienating lingo is abbreviations: BYO may mean “Baptist Youth Organization” to church members but “Bring Your Own” beverages (or booze) to everyone else.

Blessed are those churches where everyone can understand what is being communicated!

4. People who look like me

As soon as most of us enter a room, we look around to see what everyone looks like. Our level of comfort can be high or low depending on how quickly we find someone else who looks like us. In a room full of women, a man thinks, I’m in the wrong place. In a church where all the people up front are men, women wonder if they are welcome. In a gathering where everyone is young and casually dressed, the older person in a business suit feels out of place. When everyone else is white, the person of color notices.

That can be hard to change. If everyone in the church is old, younger people are less likely to come. The church that wants to be integrated may have a challenge getting started. Yet, it is amazing how even the smallest symbols can make an impact. Seeing one person who looks and dresses “like me” up on the platform or ushering or pictured in church publicity can communicate an open and inviting atmosphere.

5. Healthy problem handling

You can often tell more about a church by the way it handles problems than by the way it handles success. This makes for an easy measure because every church has problems.

What happens when the sound system emits a squeal or drops into embarrassing silence? How does the preacher respond to the howling two-year-old? Do nursery workers apologize or become defensive when they can’t find your baby’s diaper bag? When the church is running behind budget, is there a denunciation for undergiving or a challenge to prayer and generosity?

What makes a healthy church is not the absence of problems. It’s how problems are handled.

6. Accessibility

Every Saturday the Minneapolis Star Tribune reviews a local church, and every review evaluates whether the church building is handicapped accessible and whether there is adequate parking.

However, wheelchair ramps and parking stalls are only the beginning of accessibility. Is there clear and easy access to getting questions answered, meeting new people, talking to church leaders, joining the membership, discovering opportunities for spiritual growth, becoming part of a small group, resolving complaints, and signing up to serve? High ratings go to churches that are “barrier free” in every sense of the term.

At our church, every attender is invited to complete an information card at every service. There are blocks to check areas of interest. Each week many people write questions, comments, and criticisms on the back of their cards. By Monday morning all of the cards are sorted and assigned for personalized follow-up. It is part of our commitment to be accessible in every possible way.

7. Sense of expectancy

Listen to hallway conversations about the church, and you can decide if the primary verb tense is past, present, or future. Most healthy churches are hopeful churches. They are permeated with high expectations of God’s blessing for the future.

The majority of people who come to church feel beaten up Monday through Saturday; they are not looking for another beating on Sunday. They come to church for healing and hope. They want to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. They want to be told that God is there, God has not forgotten them, and God will bless them in the future. The church that truly believes and says that “because of Jesus Christ the best is yet to come”—that is the church that breathes spiritually healthy air.

—At the time this article was written, Leith Anderson was pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.

The church I grew up in was the center of our social life; I felt loved and accepted by this extended “family.” That little body of believers provided an unshakable foundation of values and understanding, which I still hold firmly.

The greatest contribution the church can make is to draw families to the person of Jesus Christ in an attitude of genuine repentance and renewal. Nothing brings husbands, wives, and children together more effectively than a face-to-face encounter with the Creator of families. In fact, it is almost impossible to stand in his holy presence without recognizing our pettiness and resentment and selfishness with those closest to us.

Each size of church has its contribution to make to the family. Some people thrive better in a crowd; they need the programs and specialists that can be provided only in a large church community. On the other hand, some people need the intimacy and personal touch of a small church family.

What Families Need

The local church is the first line of defense for the family. The vast majority of people who come to Christ do so by the efforts of organized churches, which nurture and feed them as babes in Christ.

We need fellowship with believers, we need reinforcement from those of like mind, and we need biblical exegesis from someone trained to explain the Word. We need the church.

I once conducted a poll on our radio program, asking people if they felt their churches were supportive of families. We received 1,440 responses: 61 percent were decidedly positive, while 39 percent tended to be negative.

The first group of respondents focused on the pastor himself. People said, “He teaches us about the importance of families.” “He is a family-oriented man.” “He models good fathering for the men of the church.” “He obviously loves his wife.”

There’s nothing quite so forceful as a pastor getting up in the pulpit and stating, “You won’t be able to find me on Mondays or Saturdays, [or whatever day] unless there’s been an absolute emergency. I will not be here; my home phone will ring, and no one will answer it. What I’m saying to you is ‘Go thou and do likewise.’ No one should work seven days a week.”

The most frequent complaint of the negative 39 percent, however, surprised me: They criticized the church for fragmenting families. They regretted, for example, that children don’t worship with (or even see) their parents while at church. Even at picnics and informal activities, the children have separate activities while the adults play softball or whatever. Most felt that families should not be together all the time, but there should be some common experiences to unite them spiritually.

I believe it is possible to minister effectively to a transgenerational audience. The key is storytelling. Children love to hear stories, and surprisingly, adults listen to them, too. Obviously, we can’t gear the whole preaching ministry to a preschool level, but we can certainly come together occasionally for meaningful worship. If nothing else, they see their parents responding to the worship, the music, and the pastor. They need this experience.

Targeting the Key Life Stage

Adolescence is the great turning point, perhaps the key stage in family development. At this point, teenagers who have been raised in the church are either strengthened in their faith or lost to the world. During this difficult and risky time, beleaguered parents desperately need the church’s support. Not only are wholesome activities and biblical teaching necessary, but instruction is needed to counterbalance the un-Christian experiences young people are exposed to every day.

For example, most students now encounter sex education in school that undermines (or at least fails to reinforce) basic Christian standards. Who will set the record straight, if not the church? Who will have the courage, in a day of sexual revolution, to say, “Abstinence is God’s commandment”? Who will address the social and sexual questions posed on television and offer biblical arguments and scriptural underpinnings?

My point is that the Western world has moved away from the Judeo-Christian heritage, and no one is more vulnerable to that departure than teenagers, who live on the cutting edge of culture. Our purpose in the church is not merely to give kids something to do on Friday night. I agree with Tony Campolo that we must give teens something worth living and dying for. When we introduce them to Christ and give them a passion to serve him, we draw them to the Lord—and from there to their families.

That doesn’t mean we can keep adolescents from going through adolescence. The low self-esteem and the inner conflicts won’t be entirely eliminated, no matter what we do. The turmoil is rooted in the hormonal changes of those years. As soon as puberty becomes apparent, the personality becomes more volatile and irritable. They result from an ongoing glandular upheaval, similar to premenstrual tension or menopause or a severe mid-life crisis.

No amount of church activity and counseling will eliminate that. Nevertheless, youth pastors can help teenagers cope with their stresses during this time. They can also facilitate communication between parents and adolescents. Of course, there will be times when even the most competent and dedicated parents are unable to relate to their children. Their situation reminds me of the early days of our Apollo space programs, when astronauts were blasted into the sky aboard small capsules. As they reentered the earth’s atmosphere, there was a period of about 15 minutes when the buildup of negative ions prevented ground controllers from communicating with them. We waited anxiously, wondering about the ship’s safety. Then, Chris Craft in Houston would say, “We have reestablished contact, and the astronauts are safe!”

Something similar often happens to parents and teens as they go through the negative ions of adolescence. During this eerie phase, a youth minister or a pastor can sometimes get through, can establish contact and influence them. Hopefully, the time will come when parents will be able to heave a sigh of relief and say, “Thank God, they’re safe!”

Wounded-Family Care

More than a third of our population is unmarried, with an increasing number of single-parent families represented in our churches. Those families, almost without exception, have enormous needs. Women who are working and raising children alone are often desperate for help—financial, mechanical, educational, and spiritual. Just getting through each day is a major accomplishment.

If I understand biblical imperatives correctly, it is the task of intact families to extend a helping hand. The Lord has a special place in his heart for widows (including rejected husbands and wives) and fatherless children.

Reaching Peripheral Families

I’m concerned about the number of families that come through our churches each year and give us a fleeting opportunity to introduce them to Jesus Christ. Typically, it’s not our theology that brings them to our door. One thing is uppermost on their minds: Are they needed here? Can they find acceptance? Will they be included? Could this be the place where they will fit in and find friends and fellowship?

Americans are desperate for a sense of community. Eventually many of these lonely people search for fellowship in a church setting. But what happens when they arrive at the sanctuary? Often they encounter busy, harassed people who are focused on their own needs.

Sunday can be an exhausting day for Shirley and me. We work hard to reach those whom we feel need our involvement. Sometimes it’s a couple standing alone in a Sunday school class. Perhaps they’ve attended the church for five years or more, but the social awkwardness is evident on their faces.

True commitment to building strong families requires strategic action. Here are some specific concepts a church might implement in its setting:

1. Mandate a vigorous premarital counseling program. The best ones provide a trained person to do at least six sessions before the wedding and two or more “check up” sessions six months afterward.

2. Assign couples as department heads, teachers, and other workers. The idea is to get families involved together instead of further fragmenting their time.

3. Be diligent not to overwork the more dedicated members. Families of the committed are vulnerable. The wise pastors I know keep track of how many nights per week families are expected to attend church activities.

4. Provide free baby-sitting whenever the church doors are open. Many mothers desperately need relief from constant childcare. Some of them may not be able to attend if childcare isn’t offered.

5. Target young mothers. One of the best forms of family outreach I’ve seen is a program called MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). It is an educational, recreational, artistic, and spiritual program each week for young mothers, who can be some of the most harassed people on the face of the earth. While these moms are engaged in Bible study and craft activities, the children have an interesting program elsewhere in the church. Mothers love this program and will come even if they have no interest in or knowledge of the church. Then, if the program is conducted properly, they usually begin attending the Sunday services.

The Most Important Family

If you don’t have your homelife in good order, you have no business teaching others how to handle theirs. But no one is perfect at home. You can no more be a perfect father or husband than you can be a perfect human being. You may know all the rules for good family life, all the biblical principles—and yet simple fatigue will affect your ability to implement them at certain times.

After a sermon it is always possible for a pastor’s wife to say to her husband on the way home, “I guess you know you don’t live up to what you preached today.” That is the nature of human imperfection.

At Glen Eyrie in Colorado, we were filming one of our series, and I told about a frustrating day when I rode the backs of my children. I said, “That day I violated everything I write about.” The audience applauded! They need to hear about times I haven’t measured up to my own standard.

I’ve struggled through the years to balance family and career. My most difficult decision was to quit accepting speaking engagements, regardless of how influential or interesting the setting. I reached this decision after I began to feel I was not at home with my family as much as I should be.

I had never abandoned my wife and children, but most speaking commitments occur on weekends—prime family time. I began to agonize over the contradiction: The Lord had given me a message about the family I wanted to convey, but how could I do it without sacrificing mine?

As it turned out, Word Publishers videotaped one of the last remaining seminars, which became the “Focus on the Family” film and video series. It has since been seen by 50 million people, while I’ve stayed home.

I put my family first, and the Lord did the rest. What I thought was the end turned out to be the beginning. Even our Focus on the Family radio ministry grew out of that decision, and it now reaches more people than I could have spoken to in a lifetime of travel. But most importantly, I now have the memories of my children as they walked through the teen years, which would have been lost to me otherwise.

The problem of balancing career, church, and family is a constant struggle. It is rarely possible to realign priorities once and for all. An imbalance can occur in a matter of days. The moment I relax and congratulate myself for having practiced what I preach, I tend to say yes a few times when I should have said no—and suddenly I’m overworked again.

Nevertheless, I am determined to fight the dragon of overcommitment tooth and nail.

From the book Building Your Church Through Counsel and Care, Copyright © 1997

(Ed. note: Ken Sande says publicly disciplining sinful and wanton church members is good for the church, and it’s good for the one disciplined. Then why do so few church practice discipline today?)

How do churches need to think differently about church discipline?The word “discipline” describes two aspects of church life. First there is formative discipline. This is the idea of bringing people to maturity in Christ the way a football coach disciplines his team through daily practices. This includes encouragement, practice, instruction, and showing them what is right and good. This is what a church does through its ministries.

The second category is corrective discipline. This occurs when someone swerves off the path. When a football player is not paying attention, when he is proud or defiant, the coach will make the player run laps. In the church when a brother or sister gets off track we use corrective discipline to restore and redeem them, to set them back on course.

How is this most effectively done? Both formative and corrective discipline are best done on a personal level in relationship. A small group is an ideal place. Small groups can uncover problems before they get out of hand, and relationships built on love and respect can help a brother or sister remedy a situation early.

I have an example from early in my marriage. A friend took me out to lunch and gently confronted me about a joke I had told about my wife on Sunday. He was concerned that the joke hurt her. I promised to go home and ask my wife about it. When I did she broke into tears. I would probably still be telling that joke today if a brother had not loving confronted me with something he thought was hurting my marriage.

When we are in close relationships with others we can detect dangerous patterns earlier, and in a small group we have two or three others who can look into our lives. Only later, in higher levels of discipline, should the ecclesiastical order come into play.

What happens was when a disciplinary issue involves more of the church? What should guide leaders?Leaders need to understand the three motives for discipline. First, discipline is meant to restore someone caught in sin. Discipline should be a redemptive process not a punitive process. Unfortunately most churches don’t employ formal discipline until offenses are so terrible, relationships so shattered, and patterns so engrained, that the chances of restoring someone are very small.

Secondly, discipline is used to protect the rest of the body. One church I was helping had a deacon involved in some immoral behavior. Nothing was done, people looked the other way because they didn’t want to be judgmental. Pretty soon another person was involved, and eventually the pastor was caught up in the sin. Sin is like a cancer. Many churches are like a doctor that waits too long to do surgery and the cancer continues to spread.

The third purpose of discipline is to guard the honor of God’s name. When the church knows of sin, and does nothing about it, people will not only mock the church, they will also mock God.

Can you give an example of a church that approached discipline with these three principles? I know of a situation where a man was abusing the trust he had established with other believers. He was persuading elderly people in the church to invest in a risky business deal. After receiving thousands of dollars from them he was unable to deliver a return on the investment.

Church leaders approached him, and at first they were very understanding and patient. But they later saw he was stringing them along as well. Finally they put some pressure on him to return the money or face formal discipline. Eventually he did return the money.

But the more powerful outcome came through the disciplinary action of the elders, their counsel and teaching, and prayer. The man finally came to repentance and he uncovered his lifelong habit of seeking wealth by putting other people’s money at risk. God convicted him and he requested to go before the whole congregation on Sunday and confess his sin.

Do you recommend public confession on a Sunday morning where visitors may be present? On this Sunday, after his confession, one of the women who had been most vocal in her anger toward him walked to the front of the church and said, “I’m the one who needs forgiveness more than he does. I have been murdering him in my heart.” She turned to him and said, “I forgive you, will you please forgive me?”

That is a Sunday you want visitors present. They are seeing the gospel lived out in a powerful way. In this case the sinner was restored, the body was protected, and God was honored.

In part 2:Biblical mandates and legal issues.

Ken Sande of Peacemaker Ministries brings his skills as a lawyer and engineer to consultations with churches, organizations, companies, and couples. His ministry is headquartered in Billings, Montana.

(Ed. note: Pastors who lead their churches to discipline members for sinful actions hope for biblical resolution, but they also face legal complications. In part two of our interview, Ken Sande advises that despite the liability questions, church discipline can be carried out successfully.

Ken offered encouraging examples in part one. Click here to read: Church Discipline Really Works, part one.)

Why are some churches reluctant to employ church discipline today? Clearly our culture is seeping into the church. This includes a general breakdown in respect for authority, and the embracing of individualism, the attitude that says nobody can tell me what to do. And even the democratic perspective in our country has entered many churches, so people believe everything should be done in a democratic way.

Some think issues of discipline should be brought before the whole congregation. I have rarely seen that turn out in a restorative way. Most congregations have a wide spectrum of maturity: some very soft hearted who don’t want to see anyone disciplined, and you’ve got the very legalistic and harsh. Bringing immature people together for a congregational vote is not a formula for restoration, understanding, and redemption.

Are there legal dangers for pastors and leaders as well?We hear from pastors all the time who are considering disciplining a member for egregious behavior, but before anything can be done they get a phone call from an attorney threatening a lawsuit if the church says anything publicly about the member’s behavior.

The average pastor tends to back off, and that is the end of that. The church may have avoided a lawsuit, but they will have done nothing to restore the brother or sister in sin or protect the church from further problems.

What are some things church leaders can do to overcome the dangers of using discipline? Take God at his word. The Bible consistently presents discipline as an act of love and redemption. We have to loose the cultural idea that accountability and discipline are bad things.

Secondly, realize that preparation is 99 percent of the battle. Most churches do not prepare their congregations for discipline until a crisis hits. You can’t just teach these things in one sermon. We need to be teaching about the blessings and meaning of discipline long in advance of a crisis.

It is also crucial to obtain informed consent. This is a legal term, and it is the only reliable defense against being sued. Informed consent means that the people in the church know what the bible says about discipline, they know exactly what the process involves, and they have agreed to submit to the process sometimes in the form of a membership covenant.

If we do not intentionally prepare our congregations for discipline we will undermine its effectiveness, and leave ourselves vulnerable to lawsuits. When preparation is done you can proceed with discipline without looking over your shoulder, and without fear of lawsuits.

In environments where people are less committed to one particular church, how can we prepare for discipline? I believe churches that allow a lack of commitment for an extended period of time is an error both biblically and legally. We should be calling people to make a formal commitment to membership. It used to be the case that you could not move from church to church without a letter of transfer. That was done to maintain accountability and discipline.

The situation we find ourselves in today is like allowing all the kids in the neighborhood to play in your back yard. If they do some really bad and destructive things you are going to have a hard time responding because they are not your children, and you are limited in the discipline you can use. Today churches basically allow people to come in and play church year after year, but when there is a serious problem they find their ability to deal with it to be very limited.

So the answer is a clearer commitment to membership? We need a clear commitment to membership, but we also need churches in a community working together to discourage church hopping. In some communities churches have begun to sign covenants of cooperation saying they will not sit back and allow people to move from church to church to church looking for a new thrill, and causing the same problems each place they go.

Our present culture does make redemptive church discipline more challenging, but I don’t think it is impossible.

Ken Sande of Peacemaker Ministries brings his skills as a lawyer and engineer to consultations with churches, organizations, companies, and couples. His ministry is headquartered in Billings, Montana.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Slip-ups haunt every pastor. Some are minor; others trigger long-term problems. But not all mistakes have to be fatal. Here are some ways to prevent them from becoming terminal.

Mistake Reflexes

Mistakes can cause our hearts to churn with painful emotions and impulses. Identifying our emotions is important in not further compounding our problems and to put us on the track of recovery. Here are several emotions that often go hand-in-hand with failure:

• Regret. Second-guessing ourselves is easy. We think, I should have been more sensitive with her, or I should have guessed what was happening to him.
• Frustration. On paper, our ideas often look marvelous. In reality, though, we often find no one wants to have anything to do with our brilliance. When that happens, we do our best to talk people into our idea but wind up growing more frustrated with them.
• Self-pity. Sometimes we react by adopting a victim mentality and feeling sorry for ourselves. It’s as natural as nursing our hand after touching a hot griddle. But if we let ourselves wallow too long, the wound never heals. The pain never leaves, and eventually we are crippled.
• Paralysis. After a failure, a pastor sometimes can’t snap out of it and move on with confidence to the next challenge. When we dwell on the past—wishing over and over that we had handled a situation differently, sliding into depression, and questioning our abilities—we suffer a paralysis that only compounds our mistakes.

Whose Ears Will Hear?

When we make mistakes, it can be another mistake to tell others about it. Telling eager listeners may backfire. They may go home and relate a slightly different version to their friends. Their friends tell other friends a different version still.

Since many can’t handle such information, we should admit mistakes on a need-to-know basis. What is the group’s role? How would our admission help the hearers? Would it hurt the church if they didn’t know?

Yet, at times our mistakes need to be confessed publicly, especially when they involve sin. Spurgeon, in his Lectures to My Students, quoted another minister: “When a preacher of righteousness has stood in the way of sinners, he should never again open his lips in the great congregation until his repentance is as notorious as his sin.”

Steps to Recovery

David’s recovery from his sin with Bathsheba, referred to in Psalm 51, is a model for recovery from any serious mistake. Here are six steps:

• Admit the failure to yourself. “I know my transgression, and my sin is always before me” (v. 3).
• Admit the failure to the Lord. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (v. 4).
• Claim God’s faithfulness and forgiveness. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (v. 1).
• Come to terms with your sinful humanity. “Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (v. 5).
• Ask God to put you together again. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (v. 10).
• Turn to the task at hand. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways” (v. 13).

Our failings don’t have to be terminal, though at the time they may feel that way. Our God specializes in redeeming our mistakes.

Stuart Briscoe; Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology, Volume 3, Leadership and Administration; Handling Mistakes; pp 172-173. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Book House Company, copyright © 1994.