Measure Church Health

Why Church Health?

In Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren states that "the key issue for churches in the twenty-first century will be church health, not church growth" (p. 17).

• It captures better than some others the biblical idea that the church is a living organism-that it is more like a body (cf. 1 Cor. 12:27) than a smooth running organization or a well-oiled machine.
• The notion of health seems to communicate broadly to people and does not require a lot of explanation. Generally speaking, we know what it means to be healthy, even if we cannot always clinically define it.
• Church health is less susceptible to the narrow focus that other possibilities tend to conjure up.
• A host of observers are registering significant concerns about the health of churches in North America, regardless of age, location, or type. Even growing churches are not necessarily healthy.

 Health, of course, is not an end in itself but a means to fulfilling the church's mission.

A Definition of Church Health

A useful, brief definition is this: "Church health is our expression for the normal functioning of church life as God has designed it." The value of this definition is that it reminds us of three things:

•  The word "health" is an attempt to capture a biblical concept. The term itself is not the critical issue. What is important is the reality: i.e., "the normal functioning of church life as God has designed it."
• There is a normal way for churches to function: namely, "as God has designed." Churches that do not function this way are not healthy.
• The standard for measuring church life is God's design. This is the proper impulse behind any search for "keys," "promoters," "habits," "quality characteristics," or "leading indicators" of church health.
  

Can -- Should -- Church Health Be Measured?

Counting for the wrong reasons is sin (cf. 2 Sam. 24). But it is biblical to measure what really counts for the right reasons. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Revelation 2-3:

• Seven churches in seven distinct settings are each measured by the written words of the risen Christ (2:1, 8, 12, 18, 3:1, 7, 14).
• The issues involved are fundamentally matters of church health (3:18), vitality (3:1), even life (2:5).
• The message to each congregation is different yet it applies to all of the churches (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).

Finding God's Design for Church Health

Essentially, the question of how to measure church health boils down to a debate over where to look to discover God's design for the church. Currently, there are several major options.

Intuition. People often say, for example, "In our church there is a lack of love" or "What we need is to pray more and have stronger faith." The problem is that each member--and even the pastor--see only part of reality. What they point out may be accurate, but may still be only part of the total picture.

A model ministry. This approach can be recognized in statements like: "The church down the street has revolutionized their ministry using contemporary music and drama. What we need is a worship team and skits during the worship service."  Or, "A church I know solves all their problems through spiritual warfare--that's the answer for us."

In Doing Church as a Team, Wayne Cordeiro advises:

"When you attend a conference, read a leadership book or hear about the latest movement of God in another church, I would encourage you to not superimpose that vision onto your own church. That is not to say that learning is not valuable, for a desire to continually learn is the mark of a visionary. However, I am saying that simplistic duplication is not valuable and, in fact, may hurt your organization" (pp. 132-34).

"Scientific" methodology. This is the procedure recommended by Christian Schwarz in his book Natural Church Development. From his exposure to church growth principles, Schwarz observed that thriving (not just growing) churches seemed to share a common set of characteristics:

• empowering leadership
• gift-oriented ministry
• passionate spirituality
• functional structures
• inspiring worship services
• holistic small groups
• need-oriented evangelism
• loving relationships

Schwarz has made a significant contribution to church health. Two key reasons for this are his insistence that churches examine health issues using "objective" measurements and that they actually implement a strategy to bring about continuously improving results. Because he limits his research to a "natural theology" of church health, however, he may have missed some important issues--the centrality of God's Word and stewardship, for example.

Core values. Core values are the basic attitudes, choices, and assumptions of a congregation. They answer the question, what are we devoted to?

The significance of core values is that they impact how the church's mission and ministry is conceived and expressed. On the downside, a congregation's core values can be misplaced, mistaken, or even sinful. As a result, core values by themselves cannot be the ultimate measure of a church's health.

The Bible only.  The Bible is the right place to start.  But limiting ourselves to the Bible alone is an incomplete approach to measuring church health. The Bible itself illustrates that we should not do that. (We will see this more fully under the next point.)

The issue is the centrality--not the exclusivity--of Scripture as a measure of church health. The difference between the two perspectives can be summarized like this:

• The centrality of Scripture: The ultimate determining factor is what the Bible says about each and every issue confronting the church. However weighty or valuable other considerations may be, the Bible always casts the deciding vote.
• The exclusivity of Scripture: The only determining factor is what the Bible says about each and every issue confronting the church. However weighty or valuable other considerations may be, the Bible casts the only vote.

Gene Getz's well-known book The Measure of a Church provides an example of how both of these approaches begin the work of determining biblically based measures of church health. Getz's process involves two steps.

Step One: Survey the relevant data Scripture. In Getz's study, this includes

• The use of key terms closely related to the life of the church, such as ecclesia, disciples, brothers, and saints.
• Metaphors that describe the church, such as field, building, and body.
• Paul's work of church planting described in Acts in relation to Ephesians 4:11-13, where he describes the ultimate goal of his efforts.
• Ways in which the church is a reflection of God's grace.
• Paul's use of "the divine trilogy" of faith, hope, and love to measure the health of his churches.
• A review of the church leadership qualities spelled out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
• A brief look at the foundation, essence, elements, and results of New Testament corporate worship

Step Two: Surface timeless principles that apply to all cultures and churches.

At this point, the "Bible only" approach ends its work.  Getz, of course, doesn't stop with this step.  For him, Scripture is the first "lens" in a "three-lens paradigm" that goes on to consider historical and cultural issues.  That makes him a champion of the following approach.

The Centrality of Scripture. This is the view that while the Bible is normative, all the previous approaches--and more--are involved in discovering God's design for church health.  This conclusion is based on the pattern of Scripture itself.

• Exodus 18 is an example. Moses learned the practice of delegation from a nonbiblical source, his father-in-law Jethro.
• In 1 Corinthians 9:7-8 and Galatians 6:6-7, Paul appeals to the common experience of soldiers, shepherds, and others--not simply to Scripture--to support his case for adequate reimbursement for people in ministry.
• Isaiah says that what the farmer learns from careful observation in his work ultimately is from God (Isa. 28:23-29; esp. vv. 26 and 29). By extension, this applies to other areas than farming, such as leadership, organization, management, group dynamics, etc.

Thus, while the Bible is normative, Scripture itself teaches that we can--and should--also learn valuable practices that can be applied to ministry from other sources than the Bible.

Tools for Measuring a Church's Health

Here are some useful tools for measuring a church's health. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are especially recommended. Unless otherwise indicated, each resource is available through Next Step Resources.

Becoming a Healthy Church: Leaders Kit, by Stephen Macchia. Macchia's book is a mix of the scientific, values based, and biblical approaches. It is relatively easy to use and contains Macchia's book, a workbook, a presentation and resources CD, and congregational and leadership team assessment tools.

*The EFCA Church Health Survey. The Church Health Survey was developed by EFCA National Ministries in partnership with the Barna Research Group. It is an extensive revision and update of the EFCA's Ten Leading Indicators Survey. The Church Health Survey is based on the Free Church's core value of the centrality of God's Word and thus uses a variety of inputs--Scripture, denominational values, scientific measurement, organizational insights, etc.--to define and measure "ten leading indicators" of church health. The Church Health Survey is a 100 question survey that is normed to the EFCA. An implementation guide is included with the Church Health Survey.  In addition, the Ten Indicators Equipping Guide, a workbook with study guides, is also available for pastors and leadership teams who want to go deeper. 

Habits of Highly Effective Churches. This package is produced by the Barna Research Group and consists of a book and an inventory. The "habits" were surfaced using a scientific approach, i.e., survey research involving hundreds of churches in the U.S. However, the inventory is not normed for a comparison of results. Also, there is no follow up guide to help churches address the findings of their inventory.

Natural Church Development. This is a package produced by Christian Schwarz and the Institute for Natural Church Development that consists of a book, a survey, and an implementation guide. It is a scientific approach based on extensive research involving thousands of churches internationally.

The Measure of a Church: Following the One True Standard, by Gene Getz. In this biblically focused approach to measuring church health, Getz walks readers through a consideration of the church in the New Testament, surfacing "timeless principles" of church health along the way. The final chapter summarizes all of the principles discovered and provides a question and a five-point evaluation scale for each.

Twelve Keys to an Effective Church. Callahan was an early pace-setter in his attempt to train church leaders to identify and measure strategic areas of church health. His approach is based on his wide experience as a church consultant, which means it is partly intuitive and partly comparative (based on the practice of other churches). But he has an instinct for applying research and data to the church.

(Updated 3/05)