How do you measure a healthy church?
I’m at a conference for my denomination (The Evangelical Covenant Church) this week, and on Tuesday I went to a seminar on revitalization in the church. The presenter laid out a framework of four types of churches, and asked us to place our churches in one of these four categories. The categories are: healthy missional churches, stable churches, critical moment churches, and at-risk churches. Here are the criteria they suggested as a way to measure what kind of church you have:
• People coming to Christ
• People integrating Scripture into life
• People engaging God in worship
• People growing in Christ
• People serving with their gifts
• People loving and caring for each other
• People rallying around a compelling vision
• People trusting one another and working collaboratively
• People meeting compassion, justice, and mercy needs in their community
• People believe in the leaders and the leaders believe in the people
Healthy missional churches experience these indicators routinely, stable churches experience them occasionally, critical moment churches experience them rarely, and at-risk churches do not experience them at all. I think any effort at trying to statistically categorize something like a church community is awkward and will have omissions, but I think this method is better than most I’ve seen. I think these indicators are better than the ways we often measure health (attendance, budget, property, etc.)
I said I thought that my church, Pasadena Covenant, was a “stable church” by these standards, where most of these things happen, but not on a regular basis. Here is what they said life is like in a stable church: We feel safe and comfortable, we are self-sufficient, everything is in order organizationally, we are doing fine – why change? The presenter went on to talk about how stable churches were actually the hardest to move towards being healthy and missional, because people have become comfortable and have no sense that anything needs to change. Stable churches are alive and active, but typically lack a sense of excitement, creativity, and are more focused inwardly than outwardly. In these churches there is not a lot of risk taking, because so much is invested in the status quo and most of the energy goes towards maintaining the church as an institution.
I think there are many signs of life to celebrate at our church, but this seminar was a good reminder that it is important to talk honestly about shortcomings we might be blind to.
I know you’ve thought a lot about this, so what are some of the ways in which you can see PCC taking more risks and being more excited about what’s happening within and beyond our church(moving toward the healthy missional category)?
Comment by Anna — February 9, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
That’s interesting. I hope the list is not a heirarchy or a progression. As in the things at the top of the list are more important for churches to attend to than things at the bottom. If that’s the case it would worry me that social justice is almost the last thing on the list.
Comment by Rhoda — February 10, 2007 @ 5:31 am
That’s interesting. I hope the list is not a heirarchy or a progression. As in the things at the top of the list are more important for churches to attend to than things at the bottom. If that’s the case it would worry me that social justice is almost the last thing on the list.
Comment by Rhoda — February 10, 2007 @ 5:32 am
Anna -
The two things from this list I think about the most at our church are: people serving with their gifts, and people loving and caring for each other. How can we encouarage all the really gifted and talented people in our church to use their gifts in our neighborhood and our city? How can we encourage our people to spend more time together, to learn how to trust each other and support each other? Do you like the way I answer your questions with more questions?
Comment by James — February 10, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Rhoda -
Yeah, the list is in no particular order. That would be a problem.
Comment by James — February 10, 2007 @ 10:05 am
That looks like a pretty helpful list. I would take an appreciative inquiry approach with it — i.e., taking those criteria and saying where are we strong with this and how can we move forward in what we already do well? Then we can begin asking how can we move even more into a healthy missional place?
I’d like to hear more about the people growing in Christ criterion. That one seems a bit vague (I know you just gave us the bullet points). I could say that if we added together the other criteria, that would be people growing in Christ, but I don’t imagine that is what the presenters meant.
Comment by Tyler Watson — February 15, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
Thanks for mentioning appreciative inquiry. I think that can be a very helpful tool. One of my critiques of this presentation was that in the discussion of churches that were in dire straits and managed to turn it around, it seemed like the vision for going in a new direction came entirely from an outsider - a leader that was new to the community. The people in the congregation were then given a choice, get on board with the new vision, or die. I prefer the appreciative inquiry route, where the memories and positive experiences of the long-term members the community play a big role in determining how the community will be restored.
If you are wondering what appreciative inquiry is, there is a summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry
Comment by James — February 16, 2007 @ 2:02 pm