“Jenny was initially appreciative about Todd trying to find a church for them to attend, until she discovered his criteria for choosing was the coffee shop reviews on Yelp.”

TIPS & TRICKS

Three Signs of a Healthy Church

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Fish don’t know that they’re in water, as the saying goes, and when you’ve been inside a church or an organization for a long time, it can be difficult to see it objectively. As laypeople, we have a crucial role in the life of the church to help keep our corporate body accountable, healthy, and strong. Here are some key indicators of a healthy church, and some ideas on what to do if your community needs to make some reforms:

A Healthy Church Is Financially Prudent, Generous, and Transparent

A church isn’t a company selling a product, like Apple or Walmart. It is a body. Whether your church has formal membership or not, it is a voluntary association, and the people who participate have a right to know what’s going on with the finances. This certainly doesn’t mean that everyone has a key to the tithe box or a book of checks, but it does mean that the numbers are not a secret. A healthy church is open about its expenses, facilities costs, and other overhead, as well as missional giving, benevolence, and total revenue that comes in each year. Many faithful givers sacrifice greatly in order to support the local church, and that money needs to be apportioned wisely. Transparency helps ensure that frivolous or wasteful spending will not be the norm, and it increases trust between congregations and their leadership. Unfortunately, ecclesial theft, fraud, and outright foolish financial behavior is not uncommon, but the good news is that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

One particular expenditure that needs to be examined is a church’s benevolence. Benevolence is when the church gives to people in difficult times – maybe paying rent for a few months when a church member’s husband leaves her, or getting groceries for the family whose breadwinner just had an accident and can’t work, etc. One of the reasons for the Old Testament tithe was to take care of the poor and needy among the people of God, so the church today ought to do the same.

A healthy church may expect you to be generous – but they will need to be generous as well, with the people who need it most (and are often in the messiest situations).

If your church is spending badly, overleveraged, or secretive about the books, suggest to leadership that a third-party auditor be brought in to help shed some light on the finances, or if any of the church body is in financial planning, have them help the staff come up with a budget, and suggest twice-yearly reports to the church body.

A Healthy Church Ties Its Teaching (and Ministry) to Scripture

A weekly Bible Study, sermon, worship, prayer, and communion is a valuable, helpful, good thing – and the bedrock of our spiritual practice as a community. However the modern church has a stage, and stages attract charismatic individuals. This is wonderful when the individual is submitted to God, humble, and desperate to stick to the mission. This is not wonderful when the preacher is just there for a platform. These two kinds of speakers can sound very similar in speech and tone, but what separates a good preacher from a bad one, in many cases, is the place and space that is given to the Bible.

Far too many churches today give sermons that are more like motivational talks with one key scripture reference that is quickly passed over, taken out of context, misapplied, and then forgotten. A healthy church, on the other hand, is going to have teaching that begins from scripture most of the time. There’s nothing wrong with a speaker giving you his opinion from time to time, but the pulpit has a lot of authority, and it is all too easy for a dynamic preacher’s opinions to come across as having been blessed with God’s stamp of approval. A healthy church will be careful in its teaching, have a high view of the scriptures, and search through those scriptures together.

If your church regularly gives teaching without meaningful use of the scriptures, suggest to leadership that they institute a traditional practice of scripture reading before the sermon each week, to keep the congregation grounded in the Bible. Or, mention your hopes that the Bible would be explained and read in context, for the good of the church body. If the preacher does not really ever teach from the Bible, and if he is not open to changing that in the future, it may be time to consider a new church.

A Healthy Church Encourages Ministry Outside the Walls of the Church

There is certainly nothing wrong with a church that has a lot going on. Sometimes, however, a church can start to pressure its members to have no social life or work outside of the church programs. This is unhealthy for a number of reasons, but foremost among them is the fact that Christians can’t be effective in the world… if they are not in the world! Workplace evangelism may well be the most important kind of evangelism, and it cannot be neglected or crowded out.

A healthy church is going to view its mission like Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians describes it – as a gathering to equip the saints to go out and do the work of the ministry. Most ministry, no matter how big, organized, or effective your church organization is, ought to be happening at the individual level, with people who develop genuine relationships with coworkers, classmates, or gym buddies, hang out on the weekends, and are able to serve them like Christ. Christians ought to do life together, certainly, but it should not become an impenetrable bubble where the only strategy for doing God’s work in the world is inviting others to a Sunday service.

If your church has slid into being overly insular, see if one of the programs they offer can be evangelism training, and ask leadership to encourage, from the pulpit, people to spend time with their friends and neighbors, but to do so as ambassadors for Christ, who show his love, servanthood, and wisdom to the world.

Quick Hits

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• Influential evangelical megachurch pastor Tony Evans steps down, citing unnamed sin as reason.
• CNN releases a list of the top 10 “impossibly unaffordable” cities.
• The Economist gives Donald Trump a 2 in 3 chance of winning the presidency in November, according a new statistical forecast.
• Housing expert Kirsten Jordan warns that housing prices could fall 10% in some areas this summer.