commentary on church, pt 1 of 3

Just a little preface. The following is mostly my opinion, (answers to a friend questions about the health of church) though it is based in scriptures, theological/social/biblical) commentary and experience; it is not absolute. God is moving in many different forms of Church and we can not say that there is one form of church that is perfect, (even though I may say one is better than the rest… it is far from perfection). Also, it depends on who we are ministering to, boomers (1940-1965) and early buster’s (1965-1975) prefer presentation (program based church), while late busters (1975-1985) and mosaics (1985+), prefer more of a convergent, missional church.

Also, many people are fearful of confronting the institution of Church, because they fear being called a heretic for their questioning… but as many wise people have said, it is in questioning and seeking that we find truth! Besides a heretic is only someone who questions Orthodox belief… there was a time when Galileo was a heretic for believing the earth was round (sidenote: flat-earthers still exist)

So with that preface I’ll begin answering a few questions on church health.

What makes church healthy?

A couple of definitions:

Church (capital C) - the institution of religious practice; the local congregation; the denominations; the buildings; mainline and evangelical; basically Western Churchdom.

church (small c) - the bride of Christ; the body of Christ; a community of believers; not relating to a building, sect, or denomination.

I suppose you are asking what makes the Church healthy, being the local congregation or the institution of religion we call Church. If we are looking at the Church in this way, we must first identify the hierarchy of the current system of Church, mainline or evangelical (it is mostly the same). They are formed in the likeness of a corporation, with a CEO (pastor), Board of Directors (staff, deacons and elders) and shareholders (the congregation). This hierarchical system can be a expansive and powerful machine, or a small-time, mom and pop shop. Either way the goal is the same to preach a message that is related to truth, but not too truthful as to upset the shareholders (which provide the operating budget).

This is a tricky proposition, as the CEO has two masters to appease, one of preaching Christ Crucified and the other of paying off the note on the new million dollar sanctuary.

Now I am being a little facetious… as many churches across this great nation are doing great things in the name of the Lord, with flat screen TV’s in the sanctuary, multi-million dollar facilities and smoke machines for the praise band.

It is not necessarily the form of church I prefer, but again God is using it in a mighty way.

Now, the health of these organizations is reflective of the leadership’s capacity. The leader is the lid - and no organization/ministry can grow past the capacities of it’s leader. If a leader empowers his/her people, as a true servant-leader, much can be done in the name of the Lord. But if the leader is unwilling to give up control and leads as a tyrant (yes, even some pastors lead in this way), the church can not do much good.

Now it is true that God used an Ass, but that doesn’t mean we have to be Asses.

So health of a Church is a direct reflection of the leadership. Healthy-humble leadership = healthy-usable Church.