The 8 Essential Qualities for Healthy, Growing Churches
Brief comparisons with other areas of health and life
People and Health
When emergency services attend to an injured or unhealthy person, there are certain things they check for IMMEDIATELY, because the human body needs them to be healthy. They are ESSENTIAL.
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Our Airways need to be clear.
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We have to be able to Breathe.
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Circulation of blood around our bodies has to be good.
These three things are known as the ABC of First Aid, and they are ESSENTIAL! It is IMPOSSIBLE to be healthy without these things. No amount of extra vitamins etc will do any good at all if these three things are missing!
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Plants and Health
Or take a newly planted tree in a garden: if it has the right levels of essential ingredients - water, sunlight, air temperature, and nutrients in the soil - it can't do anything else but.... g....r.....o.....w. They are ESSENTIAL.
However, if you remove even ONE of those essential items, the tree will ultimately..... die. A tree needs them ALL.
Liebig's Barrel - The Law of the Minimum Factor
The German botanist Liebig discovered the Law of the Minimum Factor in relation to the growth of plants.
Basically, the growth of an organism is dependent on a number of different factors/nutrients, but growth is controlled not by the total amount of resourcing nutrients available, but by the LEAST resource. So the MINIMUM factor/nutrient, becomes the LIMITING FACTOR to growth. Put another way, the barrel can only hold as much water as the LOWEST stave.
This means that only by improving the minimum factor will growth occur.
The same is true for church growth.
Church Congregations, Health and Growth
NCD research from 80,000 churches across the world has shown that for a church to grow, the congregation needs to be living out ALL 8 ESSENTIAL qualities. They are not optional extras! Remove any ONE of them, and sadly the congregation will start to decline and ultimately die.
And, just like in nature, and illustrated by Liebig's barrel, the growth of a Church Congregation is limited by the strength of it's MINIMUM quality.
So a congregation needs to work out what it's WEAKEST quality is and address that.
The research found that churches needed to have ALL 8 ESSENTIAL QUALITIES at quite a high level before growth would occur naturally.
The good news is that if we can create a healthy atmosphere in our churches by practising and living out these qualities at a high level, we will find that the church will spontaneously and naturally grow 'all by itself' (Mark 4:28).
I have seen severely declining churches turned around into healthy growing ones by congregations choosing to apply and live out these qualities.
So let's take a very brief look at what they are. It's the adjective, not the noun, that is important!
Remember though, the live presentation I give will give far more detail about what each quality entails, so please don't think you can just learn all about this from reading about it on a website!
Brief Descriptions of the
8 Essential Qualities for healthy, growing churches
Empowering Leadership
Empowering Leadership applies to all leaders in the church community, not just the 'main' leader. Do leaders seek to 'increase others whilst they decrease' (like John the Baptist and Jesus)? Do they intentionally seek to identify, train and empower other leaders, giving them responsibility for people and projects? Do they love it and rejoice when people do better than they do? Do leaders motivate and liberate others?
Or.... do leaders do everything themselves? Does the church suffer from 'control freaks' who want to hold on to power and won't let go? Do leaders get jealous of other people's abilities?
Gift-based Ministry
Every individual is unique. We each have different skills and passions for serving in this world. Does the church actively help people identify their unique gifts, passions, ministry and calling, and support them in serving the Kingdom of God both within and outside the church based on these gifts and skills? Is there good mutuality in and beyond the church as people flourish, serving others using their God-given gifts and abilities, and being blessed by others who are using theirs? Do new ministries of the church emerge as people are encouraged to use their gifts?
Or does the church just ask for volunteers to do what it is already doing? Have the same people been doing the same 'jobs' for so long in the church that there is no space for anyone else's gifts that might emerge in that area? Is 'perfectionism' limiting people trying new things?
Passionate Spirituality
Passionate Spirituality is often misunderstood. Whether expressed quietly or exuberantly, a passionate spirituality is one that is authentic and real. It hungers for God and seeks His will in people's lives. People with a passionate spirituality have a living and either quietly or overtly infectious personal relationship with Jesus Christ, nurtured through prayer, a love of the Bible, worship and spiritual disciplines including sacrificial giving (Jesus says your treasure goes where your heart is). They manifest the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - in their lives.
Does this describe your congregation? Or have people somehow become disillusioned with either faith or the church? Is there a disjunct between Sundays and the rest of the week in people's spiritual lives and fervour?
Inspiring Worship
Inspiring Worship relates to the quality of the worship, and NOT the style. The style can be of ANY kind to be inspiring (hence the two contrasting pictures). What matters is the QUALITY. Inspiring worship helps people to meet and connect with God, providing space and opportunity for a mutual encounter. Inspiring worship is transformative … people’s lives change for the better as a result of experiencing it! It will be a high point of people's week, with congregation members looking forward to it. Sermons will be relevant and music (if any) will be of good quality. It will be so inspiring that people will want to bring along their friends who do not have a Christian faith to experience it.
Does that describe your church? Do people come along longing to experience God, or has worship become more of a formulaic ritual (of any style), or even, dare one say it, a religious social club?
Holistic Small Groups
Small groups are essentially 'small within big', so if a church is any more than about 30 people small groups help members in their discipleship better than relying on worship services alone. 'Holistic' basically means 'they do the whole 8 Essential Qualities'. So they will practise Empowering Leadership, Gift-based Ministry, Inspiring Worship (though it will look different to larger gatherings), Loving Relationships etc etc.
Some churches do not have experience of small groups. Don't worry! A Small Group is any group which is small! So they are defined by size, not function. So.... start with the small groups you do have..... like the PCC/leadership group, the Mothers Union group, the fabric committee, flower arrangers, etc.
Need-oriented Outreach
Need-oriented Outreach has two parts to it.
Firstly, Christian communities filled with the Holy Spirit involved in and serving the needs of people in the most disavantaged parts of their local communities …. the people who are hurting the most, the poorest, the most isolated, the ones who need loving the most…etc. The only reason for doing this is to love people with God's love.
Secondly, does the church have a clear understanding or process of how people who have no Christian faith, but who might be interested, can explore faith and come to faith, becoming disciples of Christ on a journey that makes it as easy as possible for them?
So how are people in your church serving the needs of the poor in your community? Do you know people who have come to faith through the ministry of the church in the last 5 years or so?
Loving Relationships
The research found that most growing churches had a lot of laughter in them! In other words, they were fun to be part of! Which makes sense really.... why would anyone want to join or stay part of something miserable?!
And another good sign of how loving a church is will be in how welcoming it makes people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicities and faith levels feel. Loving Relationships are not just about how well we like our own close friends in church!
And Church congregations also ought to be the most forgiving places on the planet! 'Hurt people hurt people', and Christians are called to serve the hurting people of this world, so we will ourselves be hurt....and need to forgive....often. It is ESSENTIAL for a church community to be a forgiving community.
So, how diverse is your congregation in age, background and ethnicity? Does it reflect the wider community you are part of? How much resentment or bitterness is there between people in the church congregation or wider community? The latter will almost certainly lead a church into decline.
Functional Structures
A bridge is a structure that enables weight to be carried across it to get somewhere. They can all look different to each other but all have a similar purpose. They support a road that helps people get from one place to another. But a broken bridge cannot do that and so hinders or even stops the journey.
The organisational structures in our churches are like bridges. They help the church on its journey. So the easiest way to understand the role of Functional Structures in the health and growth of a church is: 'Do ALL of the organisational structures in the church help ALL of the 8 Essential Qualities to flourish'? If not, the structures need attention and/or repair!
A quick test: ask yourselves whether decisions recently made by any of your church committees have enhanced the following qualities in the life of your church:
Empowering Leadership
Gift-oriented Ministry
Passionate Spirituality
Inspiring Worship
Holiistic Small Groups
Need-oriented Outreach
Loving Relationships
Functional Structures.
If yes.... great! They are functional! If no, then they are not functional and are likely to need some repair so that they can become functional again!
