I could have died long before I reached three-score years and ten. Worse, I could have become a vegetable lying in bed waiting to die. A health check showed that I had two arteries blocked at 90%. I had no symptoms of heart problems, and if not for my wife’s insistence for a health test when I turned 50, I would have just ignorantly carried on until it was too late.

Churches, like individuals, also need to have a health check. A church that is not doing well might be oblivious of it. There may not be any clear indicative symptoms. Maybe the leaders are blind to them, or in denial. Perhaps they are too close to the situation to see the problems, or their vested interests prevent them from doing so.

Over a span of 30 years in the pastoral ministry, I have observed that most of our churches are not healthy. Furthermore, pastors and church leaders do not do a health check to determine the condition of their church. Most have never thought of it. Some don’t want to. They may not say it, but they don’t want to “face the brutal facts”.

(An excerpt from Before ER: A Call to Church Health by Lim Soon Hock)