Church Health

Church Culture

Soon-Hock Lim 3 Comments

I only came to realise after more more than 25 years in the pastoral ministry (I’m a slow learner) that one of the most important ingredients differentiating poor, good and great churches is church culture. Does a church have the right kind of culture for it to be a good or great church?

I believe that culture is even more important than vision. For example, the church may have a great vision: To win the city for Jesus, or to disciple the marketplace for Christ. But if the church does not have the right culture to support that vision, the vision simply remains a pipe dream.

Church Culture

Culture, in any setting, whether of an ethnic group or an organization, develops over time. The primary factor that shapes a group’s culture is, of course, their set of beliefs. Influential people (usually founders and leaders) and significant events also help shape, or may even change, the group’s culture (by changing the group’s beliefs). The leaders of some organizations are acutely aware of this, and they consciously shape their culture. Most, however, are not—and so, do not. If an organization’s culture is simply allowed to evolve, rather than deliberately shaped, what usually results is bad culture. The same may be said of the church.

For example, punctuality is not really part of Malaysian culture, and this is evident in most Malaysian churches. Many Malaysian Christians are late for church meetings, including the worship service. To cater for this most worship services in Malaysian churches don’t start on time. If a church wants to correct this it will have to consciously and deliberately develop a culture of punctuality.

This is equally true for things like prayer and evangelism. No Christian will deny that these two disciplines are supposed to be hallmarks of the church. We may say we believe in them or even put up slogans to tell people what we believe about them. But if the members don’t attend the church prayer meeting or ministry workers don’t really pray over their ministry, we are merely giving prayer lip service. Similarly with evangelism. Despite what we may say about what we believe vis-à-vis the Great Commission, if the people in the church are not witnessing for the Lord, evangelism is not part of the culture of the church.  When the behaviour of the people don’t validate what is supposed to be their belief it is not an actual value of the church. At best it is an aspirational value and at worst it is simply wishful thinking.

If you are a pastor or a church leader and you have not thought much about your church culture, I want to encourage you to start thinking and praying about it with your fellow-leaders. Whether your church remains where it is or forges ahead more strongly and purposefully depends a great deal on the kind of culture you have in your church.

Begin with your beliefs. For example, what do you believe is the purpose of teaching the Word of God? If you believe that it is for life change (Rom 12:2) you will not teach to simply pass information, but aim for transformation. What do you believe are the roles of the pastor and the church members? If you believe what Ephesians 4:11-13 says, then the pastor must not be expected to do everything from preaching to printing the church bulletin while the members sit snugly in their pews waiting to be served. Instead, the pastor must be set apart to lead and equip the members of the church so that they can be  empowered to do effective ministry. When that happens, it would be a very powerful culture indeed.

If there’s anything that the modern day church needs to get right urgently it is their church culture. The health and effectiveness of your church depends on it.

The Disciple’s Growth Process

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growing plant

I had a great time teaching again at Harvest Generation Church’s Bible Study on 28 & 29 August, as I did the previous two times. The church is primarily made up of a bunch of passionate, hungry and teachable young people. Their attentiveness and responsiveness make teaching them such a great delight.

Over the two evenings I taught on “The Disciple’s Growth Process”, which included: The Call to Spiritual Growth, The Areas for Growth, and The Growth Process. One of the key points in the Call to Spiritual Growth is that growth is not automatic. Growth for a Christian can only happen if we “remain in the Vine” (Jn 15:4) and, when we use what the Lord has given to us. The first calls for us to draw from the resources of Christ, the second is like going to the gym and pumping iron—we work our muscles to grow stronger and healthier.

When I presented to the group the Areas for Growth, I think they were overwhelmed by the fact that there were so many; such as, Truth, Spiritual Disciplines, and Ministry Development. Furthermore, the breadth that these subjects cover are vast. For example, one of the spiritual disciplines that Christians engage in is prayer. Often the first things we learn about prayer is that we are to pray in Jesus’ name. We may also be taught to use the acronym ACTS to guide us and to give us a balanced approach to prayer. As we progress we may learn to pray conversational prayer, praying the Word and praying in the Spirit. Later on we may learn to engage in prayer warfare, prophetic prayer and ministering to people through prayer. There is so much more, from the elementary to the deep things of prayer. This gives us an idea of how deep we can go in the many other areas of our spiritual lives. God’s spiritual ocean is very deep. The question is, How deep do you want to go?

At the two evenings with HGC the prime focus of our study was on The Growth Process. Here I attempted to show them through a chart and with the use of a roadmap imagery how a clear process can help a disciple grow spiritually. Jesus did that with his disciples. Mark 3:14-15 tell us that Jesus trained his disciples (“with him”), empowered them (“have authority to drive out demons”) and sent them to do ministry (“send them out to preach”). While the details of the process will not be the same for all Christians, nonetheless, there is a process that the Lord uses to develop us.

A church needs to understand this. Besides providing an environment conducive for growth a church also needs to put in place a process in order to help Christians grow in their discipleship and ministry.

If you want to know more, I will be more than happy to conduct this seminar or tailor something suitable for your church.

Health Check

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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.

stethoscope_and_heartshapedChurches, 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)

Church Health

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All healthy living things grow automatically. You don’t have to do a lot more than to keep them healthy. The reverse is just as true; unhealthy ones won’t. Ill health depletes energy, stunts growth, and may even cause fatality.

Healthy-Church 2Similarly with the church; because the church is a living thing (the Body of Christ). Hence, church health is strategic to church development. The question then, is: What must we do to ensure that our church is in good condition?

The church must work on its health. If it is not healthy, whatever we try to do will fail. At best we may experience transient euphoria but without long-term results. However, if we work on the health of the church, especially in the critical areas, we will see lasting results and growth.

In the study of church development, church health is not a new concept. Megachurch pastors like Rick Warren (Saddleback, Purpose Driven Church [PDC]), church consultants like Christian Schwarz (Natural Church Development), and church growth proponents like Peter Wagner have long been advocates of church health. However, it has not been taken very seriously by Malaysian churches. It is not well understood and has hardly been incorporated into our churches’ DNA, structure and strategies.

A church may have adopted the PDC model with its five purposes including its development process from Membership to Missions and its strategy to take people from Community to Core. However, it fails to realise that the underlying concept of PDC is about being a healthy church. It may incorporate one or more of PDC components. But the objective is to add or replace existing programmes, and not because the leaders think that it will contribute to the wellbeing of the church. There must be a paradigm shift. We must first think “church health”. Then, we look at what we need to do to improve the condition of the church.

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