Thanks for the good thoughts about the toothache. Surgery Friday…aaarrrggghhh!

But that puts me in the thoughts of what is a healthy church. We plant churches because it is the most effective evangelism strategy there is. The second reason is that there are so few healthy churches. The reason we do training is to try to bring a semblance of health to the churches that we help get started.

So what is a healthy church. Christian Schwartz, a German theologian did a comprehensive study that has been helpful. Over the next few days I would like to share some of his findings. It’s not new but still useful…

The first characteristic of a healthy church is EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP. This means that the pastor empowers people to do the work of the ministry. Amazing Paul got it right 2000 years ago.

The first step in that process is your own spiritual vitality. You’ve got to keep yourself fresh. Take time off. Spend time in prayer and study. Retreat and renew. Secondly is that you need a mentor. I’ve talked about mentors before, so I won’t expound. Get one. The third thing is modeling. You need to be able to say like Paul, see what I’m doing, you do these things.

Then to empower leaders: Choose the right person. Equip them. Coach them. Hold them accountable.  Develop systems that make them successful.

I’ve said it to a lot of church planters. Your church will grow to the extent that the pastor is able to empower leaders to do the work of the ministry. Ask yourself where your church is stuck. I hope it’s not at the end of your leadership.

Tomorrow: Gift Oriented Ministry.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.