Literature Review

A Call to the Church in Malaysia to be a Peacemaker (Part 2)

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by Lim Soon Hock

A critical book review of Peter Rowan’s Proclaiming the Peacemaker: Malaysian Church as an Agent of Reconciliation in a Multicultural Society (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012).

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  1. The Malaysian Church and the Theology of Reconciliation

From a survey among Malaysian Christians, the author concludes that while the respondents see peace-building as part of the church’s mission, there is, however, a gap between belief and practice.1 Empirical evidence from the reviewer’s observation bear out the foregoing.

Malaysian Christian national leaders,2 pastors, and church leaders are yet to have a handle on a theology of reconciliation, much less ordinary Malaysian Christians.

Moreover, living out the implications of the biblical expectation is challenging because of the demand of the Malay-Muslim majority to keep Islam dominant in Malaysia. Rowan is aware that Muslims in Malaysia consider Islam to be above other religions.3 For example, Islam is not part of the MCCBCHST.4 Discussions addressing common issues affecting religious sensitivities are not held on equal footing, often prejudiced against non-Muslim religions, and dialogues are not encouraged by some Muslim clerics.5

One of Rowan’s seven key themes for missiological reflection6 is “interfaith co-operation.”7 Living Lee calls for dialogues.8 However, it does not appear that CFM9 or its component bodies have used MCCBCHST as a platform to pursue peacemaking.10

In fact, the other religions perceive Christians to be divisive rather than reconciliatory because of the latter’s evangelistic efforts to convert adherents from other faiths.11 On the flip-side, Malaysian Christians are suspicious of other religions.12

Indeed, reconciliation should begin within the church. Rowan’s second theme is “multiracial congregations.”13 The author advocates for a multi-ethnic expression of the church.14 The reality in the Malaysian church is that congregations are defined by language and ethnicity.

The author seems to imply that the foregoing reality is due to church planting strategies.15 While it may be so, the strategies are likely to be influenced by two other significant factors that are peculiar to Malaysia.

One, the diversity in the language of preference for worship, teaching, and communication in the church. Two, the impact of ethnic separation in Malaysian society on the church. If the latter is to promote a theology of reconciliation in the public square, it has to first practise it within the church.

  1. The Identity of Malaysian Church and the Willingness to Suffer

Rowan hinges his thesis on the Malaysian Christian’s perception of his or her identity.16 The author understands that Malaysian Christians generally do not have a kingdom identity nor a Malaysian identity;17 rather, they lean toward a Western-Christian identity.18

The reviewer contends that the influence of a Western-shaped Christianity is inevitable since it was missionaries from the West who planted the first churches for most, if not all, denominations (including the vernacular churches).

Second, churches in Malaysia are shaped by teaching from the more developed Western church. Malaysian theologians, teachers, and pastors are yet to provide a distinctive Malaysian-shaped Christianity.19

For there to be a Malaysian Christian identity there must first be a definitive Malaysian identity. However, there isn’t one—a bangsa Malaysia.20 Hence, the former is a difficult task to prescribe.

A second challenge stems from the multi-ethnic composition of the national Malaysian church. Rowan writes that Christian identity is inseparable from who we are in our cultures and societies. That is, kingdom identity should not make us culturally less Chinese or Indian.21

The qualifier for kingdom identity must also be a qualifier for a Malaysian Christian identity.  That is, having a Malaysian Christian identity should not make an Iban Christian any less Iban, or a Kadazan Christian any less Kadazan.  The concept of a Malaysian Christian identity that does not take away anything of an individual’s ethnic particularities needs to be explored.22

The author cites Hwa Yung who describes Malaysian Christians as having “no clear sense of who they are in Christ,”24

However, the lack of boldness among Malaysian Christians is not because they do not have kingdom identity, rather it is because they fear the consequence of thus living out their identity in a Malay-Muslim dominant country that has shown significant hostility towards the church. Rowan quotes Lim Kar Yong that Malaysian Christians are not prepared to suffer for the sake of the kingdom of God and the gospel.25 The foregoing is evident from emigration statistics.26 There are few like Pastor Raymond Koh who are willing to pay the price for a mission of reconciliation.

Conclusion

Rowan’s Proclaiming the Peacemaker is an important read for all Malaysian Christians, especially pastors and church leaders. The theme of reconciliation and peacemaking as kingdom agenda that is inseparable from the gospel needs to be understood by all Christians.

However, it needs to go further—beyond the theological level.  The implications and the applications have to carefully worked out and fleshed out so that Malaysian Christians (and churches) know how to live and act as peacemakers in a multi-ethnic and fragmented Malaysia.

A Call to the Church in Malaysia to be a Peacemaker (Part 1)

Soon-Hock Lim Leave a comment

by Lim Soon Hock

A critical book review of Peter Rowan’s Proclaiming the Peacemaker: Malaysian Church as an Agent of Reconciliation in a Multicultural Society (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012).

The book review was an assignment for a course on Christian Theology, Culture and Church which I did as part of my DMin studies in 2022. Please forgive me for the academic style in which it is written. I hope reading my review will whet your appetite to read the book yourself.

Thesis of the Book

Proclaiming the Peacemaker is about the church’s mission to proclaim Jesus as the Peacemaker and to act as an agent of reconciliation.27

It includes both vertical reconciliation with God and horizontal reconciliation with people28 (and ultimately with all things).29

The church’s effectiveness to fulfil the mission is predicated on its self-identity30 and readiness to suffer.31 Rowan’s thesis is discussed in the context of the multicultural but divided society of Malaysia.32 The author has a personal interest in the subject because of his life-experience in Northern Ireland where society is deeply divided.33

Secondly, he had lived and worked in Malaysia for about ten years as a seminarian, and had seen the relevance of the subject for Malaysia.34

Critical Review of Issues Raised in the Book

  1. The Theology of Mission and Reconciliation

In Chapter 1, the author concludes that reconciliation is a central theme in the New Testament35 that has both vertical and horizontal dimensions; with God and man respectively.36 He contends that theologians and missiologists have tended to emphasise on the former but failed to explore the latter.37

He explicates the foregoing with relevant Scripture,38 especially, from the Pauline epistles.39 His study of terms, such as “peace,” “forgiveness,” and “salvation,” further underscores their connectedness with “reconciliation.”40

Rowan states that reconciliation with God must necessarily mean reconciliation with people.41 His point is supported by public theologians, such as Paul S. Chung.42

Reconciliation, then, is first, vertically with God, and second, horizontally with His people.  In Ephesians 2:14-18, Paul teaches that peace between Jewish and Gentile believers is only made possible because what used to be two peoples have become one new man in Christ.43 Hence, while peacemaking by Christians with non-Christians may be attempted, it may not, however, be easily achieved; simply because the primary vertical reconciliation with God is missing in one party.

The author, quoting Howard Marshall, is aware of the difficulty.44 Marshall’s answer is for Christians to acknowledge their shortcomings in promoting reconciliation, to repent of their hostile attitudes and actions toward others, to speak out against revenge, to know that they have the gospel of peace that the world needs, and to know that there are non-Christians who value reconciliation.45

Nonetheless, the reviewer maintains that in the context of Malaysia’s cultural diversity and dominance of Islam, the pursuit of reconciliation without compromising the gospel is challenging.

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Leadership Requirements for Healthy Churches (Part 1)

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

INTRODUCTION

The New Testament (NT) states that Jesus is the Head of the church (Eph 4:15), and that He is the One who builds His church (Mt 16:18).  These statements make it plain that Jesus is the Leader of His church.

The leaders of local churches are those whom the Lord appoints, and through whom He leads the church (1 Pet 5:1-4).  The focus of the paper is on the leaders of the local church, however, the understanding that Jesus is the ultimate Leader of every church should not be missed.  In the words of Leighton Ford, “Jesus in us continues to lead through us.” 46

The paper assumes that a church must have leadership.  The focus of the research is on the kind of leaders that are needed to develop a healthy church.  The twin problems that the research seeks to answer are: (1) what is a distinctive type of church leadership, and (2) what is a primary role of church leaders, that are essential for the development of a healthy church?

For the purpose of the paper, “type” is defined as the leadership attribute that characterises church leaders.  “Role” is defined as the function of church leaders.  And a “healthy church” may be viewed as a modern metaphor for the mature church that Paul spoke about in Ephesians 4:11-13.47

A delimitation of the paper is that it does not include the factor of church polity.  The subject of church polity is huge and is beyond the scope of the present research.  Finally, the category of leadership viewed in the paper concerns the topmost leadership echelon of the church, regardless of the term that a church may use.  In essence, these leaders are equivalent to the elders in the NT churches.48

The paper begins with a brief review of literature on church health models.  The purpose is to gain an understanding about the relationship between church leadership and church health.  The review is followed by a discussion of the main issues of the paper concerning the type and the role of church leaders that are essential for the development of a healthy church.  The research includes a study of the theology, philosophy, and practice of church leadership from the Bible, Christian literature, and practice among churches in Malaysia.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHURCH LEADERSHIP AND CHURCH HEALTH

A review of church health models shows that each model has its own set of church health characteristics.  Some characteristics are common to many of the models, while some are only found in a few models, or even unique to a particular model.

The leadership characteristic is found in many church health models.  Out of the 14 models the researcher has studied nine have included leadership.   However, the way the leadership characteristic is described varies between models, as Table 1: The Leadership Characteristic of Church Health Models below shows.

Getz and Dever stress on the biblical or NT teaching on church leadership.  Getz’s focus concerns the spiritual qualifications of church leaders.49  Based on scriptural references such as 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9 Getz describes the character and maturity expected of church leaders.50

Dever also gives import to the biblical qualifications of church leaders.51  But he goes beyond the qualifications to note the purpose of church leaders; which is to use their spiritual gifts to edify or build up the church.52  Furthermore, he states that there are four different aspects of leadership; namely, (1) the boss commanding, (2) the out-front example, (3) the supplying of what’s needed, and (4) the serving; and that they are all needed for biblical church leadership.53

Macchia’s stress is on the kind of attribute that should be reflected in church leaders—which for him is, servant leadership.[efn-note]Stephen A. Macchia, Becoming a Healthy Church: 10 Characteristics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 115.[/efn_note]  He explains that a servant-leader is one who is led by Jesus, loves those whom he leads and serves, a life-long learner, listens to God and to others, lightens the load of others, empowers a team to pursue a vision, and leaves a legacy by raising others up.54

Callahan’s focus is on the development of a strong leadership team.  The kind of leaders (or leadership team) that Callahan envisages; (1) love those they lead, (2) listen to those they love, (3) learn as they listen, and then (4) lead as they love, listen, and learn.55

 

The remaining five models stress on the role of church leaders to empower believers in the church for ministry and leadership.  They may use different terms such as empowering leadership (Schwarz, and Beeson), mobilising leadership (Koster and Wagenveld), and leadership multiplication (EFCA), but essentially, they are concerned about the role of church leaders to empower the believers in the church.  Although Searcy does not use any qualifying term for his leadership characteristic, nonetheless, his survey questions disclose that his emphasis is also on the role of the leaders to empower others in the church.56

The foregoing discussion shows that a wholistic understanding of the leadership characteristic encompasses four areas: (1) biblical qualifications, (2) spiritual maturity and character, (3) leadership type, and (4) the role of the leaders in the church.

Only three out of nine models; namely, Getz, Dever, and Koster and Wagenveld, address the first two areas about the biblical qualifications and character of church leaders (see Table 2: The Type of Church Leaders of Church Health Models below).

These two areas do not appear to be the concerns of the other six models.  It is likely, although the researcher is unable to cite direct quotes, that proponents of these six models have assumed that church leaders must necessarily be biblically qualified and possess a Christlike character.  Their focus is on the type and the role of church leaders.

The researcher observes that they have different views about leadership types, but they have less differences about the role of church leaders.  All these become clearer when we scrutinise the details of their models in the following sections of the paper.

In sum, the study of church health models shows that:

(1) The leadership factor is one of the most critical elements that determines the health of a church.

(2) The church leadership characteristic in church health philosophy covers four areas: (i) qualification, (ii) character, (iii) type, and (iv) role.

(3) It may be assumed that church health proponents agree about the biblical qualifications, maturity, and character of church leaders.  However, they appear to vary in their understanding about what the distinctive type of church leader should be, and to a lesser extent about the primary role of church leaders.

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Re-Envisioning Vocational Christian Ministry in the Church in Malaysia in Light of Change (Part 3)

Soon-Hock Lim Leave a comment

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

This paper was written in November 2020 when the government of Malaysia imposed restrictive curbs, SOPs, and lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19). This significantly affected the activities of the church.

Click here for Part 2, and here for Part 1

A REVIEW OF THE ROLE OF THE VOCATIONAL MINISTER IN THE MALAYSIAN CHURCH IN LIGHT OF A CHALLENGING CHANGE

As we review the role of the vocational minister in the Malaysian church, the first point to note is that change in and around the church does not alter the minister’s ministry functions.  However, change may alter his emphasises from among his varied functions and how he carries out his functions.

An example is from the changing size of a church.  Gary L. McIntosh posits that churches have different needs depending on size.  A small church is not just a miniature version of a large church but an entirely different entity.57  Hence, as a church grows from small to medium-size to large the dynamics of the church also changes.  This does not only affect the church’s structure, orientation and strategies but also the pastor’s role.58

Change in or outside the church always demands a response if it is to be positively addressed.  On one hand it should be met with a response of consistency concerning the purpose and values of the church.  On the other hand, it should be met with a recalibration of the priorities and methodology of doing church and ministry.

The Minister’s Leadership Function

In a crisis brought about by change, among the three functions of leading, feeding and caring, the minister must prioritise his leadership function.  He needs to study the change, the effects of the change and how to address the change.  He doesn’t do this alone but with his leadership team.  Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon the minister to take the lead.  Leadership is a key function of the vocational minister. He cannot surrender that role to anyone.

The Use of Technology59 and Online Platform

The biggest visible change in the Malaysian church as a response to the effects of the  pandemic has been the adoption of the online platform as a substitute or as a complement to limited onsite meetings.  When the Movement Control Order was first enforced in Malaysia on 18 March 2020 churches all across the country were caught totally unprepared (except a few churches that already had an online presence).  Churches responded with varying degrees of rapidity, expansiveness and intensity in their adoption of the online platform.

 

Some churches immediately started to learn and use the available technology to livestream their worship services.  Most churches were slow to adopt the new technology.  Some were quick to make use of existing digital communication tools for small group meetings and to provide daily or weekly devotional content for their members.  Others felt challenged by the new technology or were stretched by their limited resources.  Some churches made significant financial investment to upgrade their equipment for quality virtual broadcast.  Many simply hoped and prayed that all this would quickly pass and the church would be able go back to do church and ministry like the time pre-Covid-19.

These varying degrees of responses from churches in Malaysia underscore the importance of the leadership function of the minister.  In other words, the minister’s leadership determines how his church responds to change.60  Moreover, a church’s response to external changes demands internal changes.  Managing congregational changes requires wise, Scripture-guided and clear leadership from the minister.

The Unchanging Purpose of God and His Church

More importantly, the minister’s leadership is needed to direct the church in a “long obedience in the same direction.”61  Priorities and methods may change, but the purpose and values of the church do not change.  The minister must constantly and continually lead the church towards the purpose of God as revealed in Scripture.  Foremost, in terms of the mission of the church, is to make disciples of the nations (the Great Commission, Mt 28:18-20).

Hirsch and Ferguson contend that,

“…Jesus gets the privilege of decisively defining the movement that claims his name; nonetheless, leaders in his church need to take this task of defining the parameters of how people think about the church with utmost seriousness.  Allowing Jesus to guide us, it is part of the leadership task to somehow manage how the rest of the organisation as a whole sees itself and its function in the world.  In other words, it’s the leaders’ job to define ecclesia for the people and organization they lead.

This puts a huge theological responsibility on leadership to ensure they have a vision of the church that is consistent with the church Jesus built.  We cannot shirk this, especially in moments of crisis that require accurate recalibration.”62

What is the recalibration that is needed to fulfil the Great Commission in this new season where mass gatherings are curtailed?  The answer must be in small groups.  The ministry of small groups is not new, but in this new season it needs to be emphasised and reconstructed.  The minister needs to lead the charge in reconstructing the small group ministry of the church.  For example, the small group needs to become even smaller.  12 may no longer work.  20 is certainly unworkable.  Six might be ideal.  Also, the general thrust of the small groups in coming together for Bible study and fellowship is not significantly focussed enough if the church is to fulfil the purpose of the Great Commission.  The thrust of the small groups has to be disciple-making and life-on-life discipling.63  In this regards the minister needs to provide the leadership model of discipling in small groups in his church.64

The Minister as Trainer

The minister obviously cannot carry out discipling by himself.  He needs to multiply himself.  In other words, he needs to empower others to do the same (2 Tim 2:2).  He has to see himself as one of God’s gifts to the church whose function is to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:11-13).  And the area which he is to equip his church is naturally in the area of his giftedness or expertise, which is to shepherd or disciple others.65  Hence, the pastor reproduces according to his own kind.66

Colin Marshall and Tony Payne call for ministry mind-shifts.  Their list of 10 ministry mind-shift items includes: from running programmes to building people, from running events to training people, from relying on training institutions to establishing local training, from engaging in management to engaging in ministry and from seeking church growth to desiring gospel growth.67

They propose a mental image of the pastor as trainer who functions as a preacher and trainer, instead of a clergyman who is a preacher and service-provider or a CEO who is a preacher and manager.68  Their comparative chart of the three images of the pastor is helpful.69

The same sentiment is shared by William Willimon.  In A Reader for Ordained Ministry he discusses a number of images of the 21st Century pastor that includes the more far flung images of media mogul and political negotiator and the more commonly held images of preacher and servant.  He asserts that it is the nature of the Christian ministry to be multifaceted and multidimensional.  He insists that the “gospel does not change, but the context in which the gospel is preached and is enacted do change.  A predominate pastoral image might have been fruitful in one age may not be so in the next.”70  Nonetheless, because the Christian ministry is significantly countercultural, Willimon says he finds “much to be commended in the image of the pastor as a missionary, or more accurately, a lead missionary or equipper of the missionaries.”71  The last point is key to the minister’s function in the present and challenging season of change.  The minister’s function is not only to lead his church to fulfil the unchanging commission of disciple-making, but also to train and empower his church for this same purpose.

The church member, who has been thus trained, may not be called nor able to preach in a large meeting, but he can carry out a disciple-making ministry with a small group of people.  During this season where large gatherings are curtailed this makes for a significant ministry strategy.  A next step might be for the vocational minister to further train and release able men and women to start new churches in their neighbourhood and places of work; in fact anywhere, where they can engage non-believers and disciple believers.  It is time for a mental shift, to stop thinking of church in terms of church gatherings, but to be the church everywhere.  This is in total alignment with the NT concept of the church, which is simply a people gathered, centred around Christ and in mission for the Kingdom.72

CONCLUSION

The Malaysian church may not be aware, or may not want to admit, that its subservience to its institutionalised nature has made it quite impotent.  The needs of the members, the programmes of the church, and keeping the church establishment intact are more important than the mission of the church.  That being the case, in a season when the church is hit hard with an external and challenging change the prevailing mindset of the church cannot effectively respond to the change.  Neither can it keep its focus on its mission.

It is the role of the vocational minister to provide leadership for the church to respond to the change.  No doubt, the minister’s function is also to feed and care for the sheep whom the Lord has entrusted to him, but in a season of change he needs to step-up in his leadership function to lead the church to fulfil the unchanging purpose that God has for His church, namely, to make disciples of the nations.

The vocational minister can do this best by multiplying himself through training his members to be disciple-makers.  In the present challenge when the church gathered needs to go small, the move to disciple-making in small groups is ideal.  Perhaps, these empowered disciples can even start small churches where the Lord has put them.  It is not difficult to envision a movement of organic churches73 mushrooming all over a city, a nation and in the nations of the world.  This is perhaps the answer to lockdowns due to a pandemic or in times of persecution.  And it might very well lead to a movement that Keller, Hirsch and Ferguson speak about in their books.

Re-Envisioning Vocational Christian Ministry in the Church in Malaysia in Light of Change (Part 2)

Soon-Hock Lim Leave a comment

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

This paper was written in November 2020 when the government of Malaysia imposed restrictive curbs, SOPs, and lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19). This significantly affected the activities of the church.

Click here for Part 1

A DESCRIPTION OF THE VOCATIONAL MINISTER IN THE MALAYSIAN CHURCH

Hovorun’s point about self-awareness is also applicable for the vocational minister.  The vocational minister needs to be aware of his person, role and functions as a minister in the church.  Self-awareness allows for self-evaluation and self-correction.

In the Malaysian church the general perception is that the role of the vocational minister is to carry out pastoral functions and to meet the pastoral needs of the members of the church.  A simple example is the expectation of members for the main pastor to visit them in hospital and pray for them.  It is not enough that another pastor or a lay-leader visits and prays for them—it must be the main pastor.  The unfortunate result arising from the institutionalism of the church is the perception and expectation that the work of the pastor is to keep the church serviced.

The minister by nature of his role has many functions.  Seward Hiltner in Ferment in the Ministry lists at least nine important functions: preaching, administering, teaching, shepherding, evangelising, celebrating, reconciling, theologising and discipline.74  With so many and varied ministerial functions what should be the overarching function of the minister if he were to make sense and prioritise his varied functions?

The New Testament Image of the Vocational Minister

The NT word for the pastor is poimēn which means shepherd.75  The term is mostly applied to Jesus (Jn 10:11, 14, 16, Heb 13:20, 1 Pet 2:25, Rev 7:17) and once to describe one of the four kinds of men that the Lord gifts to the church (Eph 4:11).  Cognates of poimēn in the NT include poimainō,76 poimnē,77 and poimnion.78  They are used literally for vocational shepherds and their work of tending their sheep, and also figuratively of Jesus and church leaders and their work of ministry among the people under their care. The use of poimēn and its cognates makes the shepherd imagery an apt description for the minister.

The shepherd imagery, with cues from Psalm 23:1-4, sums up the primary role of the minister as leading, feeding and caring for the people in the church.  Leading includes leading the people to the Lord, to grow in their relationship with Jesus and to learn faith and dependence on Him (Gal 4:19).  It also means leading the church collectively towards the purpose of God (Acts 13:1-3, 15:1-35).  Feeding includes teaching the people the Word of God; its truth and application in their lives.  It also involves training them to be effective disciples and workers in the Kingdom of God (Eph 4:11-13, 2 Tim 2:2).  Caring includes spiritual nurturing, binding up the wounds of the soul through counselling and prayer (Js 5:13-16) and protecting the flock from false teaching (Acts 20:28-35).

The Role of the Vocational Minister in the Malaysian Church

As we return to the description of the vocational minister in the Malaysian church, it is clear that among the three functions of leading, feeding and caring, the caring function is the one most expected of the minister.  The least expected is the leading function, and especially in relation to directing the church towards God’s purpose for the church.  I will pick up on this point in the subsequent section of the paper.  The feeding function lies  between the above two functions in terms of what is expected of the minister.

The church in general may recognise the importance of the minister’s role in feeding the flock with the Word of God but in reality they do not place the minister’s teaching function as important as caring for their needs.  I have observed that many churches do not adequately provide the minister with time and resources to empower him to be an apt teacher of the Word.  Neither do they make the minister’s teaching function his primary role in the church.

Chow Lien Hwa’s article in the SEA Journal of Theology calls for a minister to be a theologian in his church.  It is important because, as Chow says, the minister-theologian has the ability to contextualise theology for his area.79  Sunny Tan Boon Sang echoes the sentiment in a review of Chow’s article, “A resident pastor-theologian would be one who could devote himself/herself to the ongoing task of facilitating and supervising the work of theology in a local church.”80  This reminder is even more critical in the context of change because the ability of the minister to determine and lead a right response to the challenge of change requires sound understanding and teaching from Scripture (2 Tim 2:15).

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Re-Envisioning Vocational Christian Ministry in the Church in Malaysia in Light of Change (Part 1)

Soon-Hock Lim Leave a comment

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

INTRODUCTION

The Covid-19 pandemic and the SOP set in place in Malaysia to control it have affected the church and its ministries.81  One of which is the curb on large group meetings.  The traditional church thrives on large meetings.  This is true of ministries within the church like the worship service and also those outside the church like its community services.  This global pandemic has caused, or rather, forced, the church to rethink about how it should do ministry.  In fact, in view of the changes that are taking place in and around the church, it also needs to rethink its ecclesiology,82 and the vocational minister needs to rethink his83 role.

The primary purpose of this paper is a re-envisioning of the role of the vocational minister in light of the aforementioned mega change that is affecting the church and its ministries.  The vocational minister refers to the main pastor of the church.  Nonetheless, in most instances, the discussion is applicable to other pastors in a multi-staff church, as well as to bi-vocational and church leaders who see Christian ministry as their primary vocation.  The minister’s role, however, cannot be separated from the church and its ministry.  Inevitably we have to also discuss issues pertaining to the nature of the church and notions of its ministry.

This paper is an engagement in practical theology, in that it is about the theology of ministry.  Hence, the discussion uses and interfaces with the four commonly accepted ways of doing theology: Scripture, reason, tradition and experience.84  A final point to note about the paper is that while the discussion may be applicable to churches world-wide because of the global effects of Covid-19, the context of this paper is limited to the church in Malaysia.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE MALAYSIAN CHURCH

The best way to describe the Malaysian church regardless of its denomination, language group and size is to tag it with the label “institutionalised.”  At first glance this may appear appropriate since religion is one of the five major institutions of society.85

For our purpose an institution is defined as an establishment with a firmly set purpose, structures and code of practice.86  Timothy Keller in Center Church argues that organisations should have both institutional characteristics and movement dynamics.87  He quotes Hugh Helco, “To live in a culture that turns its back on institutions is equivalent to trying to live in a physical body without a skeleton or hoping to use a language but not its grammar.”88  In other words, as Keller observes, institutions bring order to life.89

Institutions are important and necessary, but they also have several negative characteristics.  They include, the process of decision making that is procedural and slow, innovation is from top down and implementation is done in departmental silos.  An institution may be stable but they are slow to change, their emphasis is on traditions, the past and customs, and future trends are dreaded and denied.90

Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson concur when they say,

“…their [institutional structures] intent is almost always good.  Even so, concretized institutionalization does tend to block some of the most powerful aspects of ecclesia as Jesus intended it: a potent social force and gospel phenomenon that sweeps through populations.  Any reading of history, Christian or otherwise, shows that institutional religion can become repressive, stifling creative expressions.

One of the most fundamental reboots we need to do in our day is to rediscover ourselves as the same potent, transforming people movement that started with Jesus and went on to change the world.  The institutional forms have gotten us where we are now and can’t take us farther.  We need to become a people-movement again.”91

Very often with institutionalisation comes institutionalism, and very soon the church is beset with traditionalism and conservatism.  As a result it is not be able to respond quickly and innovatively when confronted with change.  In fact, it may not want to for fear of betraying its long-held beliefs, values and practices.

If this description of the Malaysian church is correct, then the church needs to do some self-evaluation.  However, self-evaluation can only take place if there is self-awareness.  The concept of the church’s self-awareness is discussed at length in Cyril Hovorun’s Meta-Ecclesiology.  He argues that at different epochs of history the Church encountered challenging situations.  They may be spiritual, intellectual, social or political in nature or the result of other historical circumstances.  The challenges of these situations necessitated a response from the Church concerning its self-perception.92

Hovorun’s thesis is helpful for the Malaysian church.  The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a huge challenge to the church—which might even be termed a crisis.  How is the church responding?  Will its response enable the church to thrive and advance the cause of the Kingdom of God?  This is dependent on the level of the church’s self-awareness.  The fundamental question that needs to be asked is: Can the Malaysian church see itself beyond its institutionalised nature?

The New Testament Concept of the Church

The New Testament (NT) concept of the church was not that of an institutionalised church.  The institutionalised church is a product of the evolving concept of the church over time as it became more organised, more structured, more rigid, and hence more institutionalised.

The writers of the NT used ekklēsia to term the Christian community.  In antiquity the term was used for an assembly, as in a regularly summoned political body.93  The people who make up the church then, are those who have been called out to gather as the people of God who hold in common a confession of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour (Mt 16:16, 18, Acts 2:47, 1 Tim 3:15-16).

The foremost characteristic of the church would be the centrality of Christ.  Secondly, it’s about a people coming together for the same cause.94  The church may come together for many Christ-centred purposes (Acts 2:42-4), but its ultimate cause is to be empowered and sent out by the Holy Spirit on a mission (Acts 1:8; 13:2-3) centred around Christ’s work of redemption (1 Cor 11:23-26) leading to God being glorified (Eph 3:21).  This cause, or the primary work of the church and of every individual Christian, is most succinctly captured in Matthew 28:18-20, otherwise known as the Great Commission.

This NT concept of the church has direct implications on how the Malaysian church ought to perceive itself and its primary mission, and also how the vocational minister ought to perceive himself and his primary function.

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Church Strategic Planning Literature Review (Part 2)

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THE PROCESS-DRIVEN STRATEGY

A clear representative of the process-driven strategy for church health is Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church (PDC) model.95  Advocates of a process-driven strategy may or may not have a list of quality characteristics like NCD’s.  In the case of PDC, the five purposes of growing warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism96 may be seen as PDC’s list of quality characteristics.  In the PDC model, church growth is the natural result of church health.  The latter can only happen when the church’s message is biblical and its mission is balanced.  That is to say, the five New Testament purposes of the church must be in equilibrium with one another.98  It uses the picture of the baseball diamond as a visual to help members of a church see the process (and progress) of their spiritual growth.  Each base represents a level of development.  The objective of the process is to move people from membership to maturity to ministry and finally to missions.99  This may also be viewed through another diagrammatic visual called the “5 Circles of Commitment.”100  It shows the clear intention of the church to move people from “community” (the unchurched) to “crowd” (the attendees) to “congregation” (the members) to “committed” (the maturing members) and finally to become part of the “core” (the lay ministers).101  Warren writes, “Our ultimate goal at Saddleback is to turn an audience into an army.”102  Clearly they have a strategy to accomplish this, namely, the “Life Development Process.”  Saddleback’s success is well documented, having baptised their 50,000th person in its 38th year in 2018.103

A more generic presentation of the process-driven strategy to church health is found in Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger’s Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples.104 The authors define a simple church as “a congregation designed around a straight forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth.”105  The definition is further expanded and includes four key elements.  In the Simple Church strategic process “The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it.  The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment).  The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus).”106

The genius of the Simple Church is its simplicity and the clarity with which the authors explain the needful strategic process to make disciples and hence, a healthy church.107  Much of the book is about the four elements.  “Clarity is the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people.”108  It is a given that when people have a clear understanding about what something is about, they will be more committed to it.  “Movement is the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment.”109  For people to grow spiritually they need to move along in their journey of discipleship, and the church helps by providing them with a process to do so.  In other words, a process helps members of the church to progress.

“Alignment is the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process.”110  Rainer and Geiger maintain that churches naturally drift away from alignment.111  The result of misalignment in purpose, ethos and strategies is that everyone will be doing their own thing as they compete with each other for the same resources which leads to disunity and the church being pulled in different directions.  Alignment means that the ministry-departments must submit and attach themselves to the same overarching process.112  “Focus is the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simply ministry process.”113  Focus is knowing what to say Yes to, that is those things that are in alignment to the goals of the church, and the courage to say No to those things that are not in alignment.

Many churches have a desire to make disciples as per the Great Commission, but very few have a process to do that.  The authors of the Simple Church make an important call for every church to have a process in place to make disciples.  An effective process will determine progress.

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Health Literature Review (Part 3)

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THE ORGANIC-MISSIONAL APPROACH TO CHURCH HEALTH

With reference to the last point above, indeed one of the criticisms levelled against church health teaching, especially the principle approach, is that it is too much focussed on the church body.  Charles Van Eggen remarks that seven out of NCD’s eight quality characteristics, the possible exception being “need-oriented evangelism”, are concerned almost exclusively with the internal life of the church.97  Ed Stetzer, who propounds a missional matrix of christology, ecclesiology and missiology, comments that the Church Health Movement focuses largely on ecclesiology in order to grow.  Hence, Stetzer argues, “by emphasizing ecclesiology, with a limited Christology and an absent missiology, the Church Health Movement stepped outside of the scriptural and theological foundation leading to blindness to the world outside the church walls.”112  That is to say, if missions or the Great Commission is not the focus and pursuit of the church the latter cannot be deemed to be healthy.

This is where the organic-missional approach to church health needs to be seriously considered.  The primary proponent of this approach is Neil Cole who wrote Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens.114  The purpose of “organic churches” is to multiply healthy disciples, leaders, churches and movements,115 and this multiplication can happen anywhere and everywhere.116  They endeavour to accomplish their purpose by emphasising on the health and the natural means of reproducing the foregoing.[end_notes]Ibid, 23[/efn_note]  Cole argues for the organic nature of the Kingdom of God.117  He uses the agricultural-setting parables of Jesus as his Scriptural basis for organic churches: the sower118 (Mk 4:3-20), the growing seed119 (Mk 4:26-29), and the mustard seed[end_note]Ibid, 97-98[/efn_note] (Mk 4:30-32).

As far as the organic nature of the church is concerned Schwarz and Cole are in agreement.  How they apply that biblical truth, however, differ.  Schwarz would say that we need to produce a healthy environment for the church to grow.120  Cole would say we need to produce the right DNA at every level: the individual disciple, small groups, church and movement so that growth and reproduction take place.121

The stress on the organic nature of the church may at first appear to be the overriding characteristic in Cole’s idea of the church because of the name given to it, namely “the organic church”.  However, the missional aspect of his idea of church cannot be glossed over as secondary.  Missions is at the very heart or thrust of the organic church.122  Indeed his understanding of the DNA of the church is made up of Divine truth, Nurturing relationships and Apostolic mission.123  This DNA may also be seen as Cole’s short list of characteristics of a healthy church, and missions is not only one of three critical components it is also the outward thrust for the church.

Colin Marshall and Tony Payne’s The Trellis And The Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift That Changes Everything124 has similarities with Cole’s Organic Church.  The trellis refers to the structures and programmes that support the ministry of the church.  The vine essentially refers to the people who are part of the Body of Christ or who will eventually be incorporated into His Body.  Marshall and Payne write, “This is what the growing of the vine really is: it is individual, born-again believers, grafted into Christ by his word and Spirit, and drawn into mutually edifying fellowship with one another.”125  In essence The Trellis and the Vine is the authors’ argument for the church to make paramount disciple-making.  “Church health” is not a term they use, but it would be right to say that in their view when a church gives attention to the vine work of making disciples the church will be healthy.  Their follow up book The Vine Project: Shaping Your Ministry Culture Around Disciple Making126 provides a detailed roadmap for churches who wish to embark on this journey.  The two key things that such churches must do is one, to develop a culture of making disciples127 and two, multiplying gospel growth through training co-workers.128

It seems odd that while the title of the book is The Trellis and the Vine, nothing significant is said about the trellis.  When the trellis is mentioned it is written with a negative view—that churches have allowed structures, programmes, polity, management and the like to stifle disciple-making.129

Cole’s Organic Church has a better balance, to use Marshall’s and Payne’s imagery, of the trellis and the vine.  Cole writes, “Structures are needed, but they must be simple, reproducible, and internal rather than external.”130  He goes on to draw an imagery from the exoskeleton and endoskeleton of the human body.  He writes, “The structure should not be seen, yet the results of it should be evident throughout the body.  Organization must be secondary to life and must exist to help support the organic life of the body.”131  The church as a living spiritual organism must inevitably be organised.  However, the structures must not dominate the church’s missional purpose of making disciples but to serve it. 

CONCLUSION

Each individual approach to church health, principle, biblical and organic-missional, is insufficient to provide us with a comprehensive study and understanding of church health.  The three approaches should be woven together if we are to have a better grasp about what constitutes a healthy church and how we are to measure it.  The student of church health must begin by studying what the Bible says about the church—what it is and what it is to do, as the advocates of the biblical approach would counsel us.  What the Bible says must form the foundation for any definition and set of characteristics of a healthy church.

However, simply knowing what the Bible says about the church is, by itself, insufficient to determine the health of a church.  The latter needs to be analysed, and the process of analysis should include the use of social science research tools. This is one aspect that the principle approach to church health has to offer.  To be certain, the areas to be “measured” are not simply from an organisational aspect, collections and attendance at worship services.  What the Bible says about the life and calling of the church must be our guide.  In this sense the commitment and effectiveness of a church to its missional calling and the Lord’s commission to make disciples, that the organic-missional approach stresses, must play a prominent part in the assessment of the health of a church.

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Health Literature Review (Part 2)

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THE THOLOGICAL APPROACH TO CHURCH HEALTH

The advocates of the theological approach to church health primarily look at what the Bible says about the church—what the church is to be and to do.  One of the most significant contributions to church health literature in this vein is Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.132  He disagrees with the focus on pragmatism and numerical church growth of popular models of church.133  He also disagrees that appearances of relevance and outward responses are key indicators of being a successful church.134  Instead he opines, “We need churches in which the key indicator of success is not evident results but by persevering biblical faithfulness.”135

The first five of Dever’s nine marks of a healthy church concern the right preaching of the Word of God: (1) expositional preaching, (2) biblical theology, (3) the gospel, (4) biblical understanding of conversion, and (5) biblical understanding of evangelism.  The last four marks concern discipleship: (6) biblical understanding of church membership, (7) biblical understanding of church discipline, (8) Christian discipleship and growth, and (9) biblical understanding of church leadership.136  Dever admits that these are not the only marks of a healthy church and may not even be the most important.137  What’s critically important is that the teaching on these aspects of church health are derived from Scripture itself, hence the qualifying word “biblical” accompanying most of the marks.

Dever states that the first mark, expositional preaching is the most important, which in his mind is the only form of biblical preaching.138  By expositional preaching he means preaching a message from a passage of Scripture in its context.139  In other words, the text determines the point rather than the text being used to support a pre-conceived point.  A healthy church is one whose beliefs and practices are derived from the Bible, such as Dever’s nine marks themselves.

Most of Dever’s nine marks of a healthy church fall under the category of spiritual health.  They are also described primarily from a spiritual angle.  While the church is a spiritual entity, a comprehensive understanding and evaluation of the health of a church must, nonetheless, include its organisational health.  The latter comprise the structures, systems and processes by which a church uses to develop the marks of a healthy church.  A biblical- or theological-only approach to the study of church health does not appear to address the church’s organisational health.

John Stott’s The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor140 would fall into the category of a theological approach to church health.  The purpose of Stott’s book is to set out the theological and essential marks that characterise an authentic and living church.141  It is obvious that Stott does not mean to stipulate an exhaustive list of such characteristics.  From Acts 2:42-47 he determines that there are four essentials in the kind of church that God envisions: (1) a learning church, (2) a caring church, (3) a worshipping church, and (4) an evangelising church.142  In the remaining chapters of the book he discusses different aspects of church life.  Some are directly related to the four essentials mentioned above, others do not have any connection to the four essentials; such as ministry, giving, and impacting our world for social change.

His concluding chapter on “Looking for Timothys” is not really a conclusion.  It could even be seen as another mark of a healthy church—the need to look out and raise up Timothys.  As with Nine Marks, The Living Church is necessary and helpful in the study of healthy churches because it presents the biblical teaching on what Stott deems to be the marks of a healthy church.  His gleanings from Scripture regarding these marks are insightful.

In a slight departure from an otherwise theological-only approach to church health, Stott encourages surveys to be done of the community and the church to determine if a church has organised itself relevantly to the community, or is there a disconnect between them?143  Surveys or studies such as these are critical since the level of effective community outreach is an important component to determine the overall health of a church.

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Health Literature Review (Part 1)

Soon-Hock Lim 1 Comment

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

INTRODUCTION

The subject of church health is less precise than the subject of church growth.  Unlike the latter the former does not have the coherence of the Church Growth Movement (CGM) nor does it have formidable spokesmen that Donald McGavran and Peter Wagner had been for the latter.  As a result, each advocate of church health has his own definition and set of characteristics for what constitutes church health.

The purpose of this review of church health literature is to scope from among the significant authors on this subject for their understanding and criteria of church health.  These views of church health may be classified under three broad categories: The Principle, the Biblical, and the Organic-Missional approaches.138 This is not to say that the principle approach is unbiblical or non-missional.  It is.  However, its emphasis is on the principles of church health.  The same can be said of the other two approaches that make much of their own emphasis.

In this article I will review two significant publications that represent each of these approaches.  Due to the limitation on the length of the article, the second book in each approach is given less treatment than the first book.  I conclude this review of church health literature with a discussion on how all three approaches together may help toward a greater understanding of church health.

 

THE PRINCIPLE APPROACH TO CHURCH HEALTH

The principle approach looks at what constitutes church health characteristics from both Scripture and practice of church life and ministry.  Then it looks at how a church is to improve along the quality scale of these characteristics so that it becomes a healthier church.

Christian A. Schwarz is one of the most quoted proponents for this approach on church health.142  His teaching on church health is found in his basic text titled Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches144 and a later publication called Color Your World with Natural Church Development: Experiencing all that God has designed you to be which was written for Christians to apply NCD principles at the personal level.145  Arising from his extensive research that covered churches around the globe,146 he determined that there are eight quality characteristics that all churches must have.  They are: (1) empowering leadership, (2) gift-oriented ministry, (3) passionate spirituality, (4) functional structures, (5) inspiring worship service, (6) holistic small groups, (7) need-oriented evangelism, and (8) loving relationships.

The health of a church is reflected in the overall quality of these characteristics found in the church.  The health is determined through a quantitative survey done among selected members of the church.147  Furthermore, NCD research reveals that if every quality characteristic scores 65 and above on their rating scale then the church is inevitably a growing church.  This is known as the “65 hypothesis.”148  The point of this approach to church health is for a church to keep improving on the quality of all eight characteristics.  The greatest attention, though, is to be given to the lowest quality characteristic because the growth of the church cannot rise beyond the level of that characteristic.  This is termed the “minimum factor.”149

The strategy also calls for the incorporation of NCD’s six biotic principles: (1) interdependence, (2) multiplication, (3) energy transformation, (4) multi-usage, (5) symbiosis, and (6) functionality. These principles are biotic in nature because a church is an organism and not a machine.150  When these principles are applied they “create an environment that will allow God’s growth automatisms—with which He Himself builds the church.”151  NCD stresses the development of an environment in a church where the church can grow.  In other words, church health naturally152 or automatically153 leads to church growth.  Schwarz terms it “The ‘all-by-itself’ principle”154 found in the parable of the growing seed (Mark 4:26-29).

Another principle approach to church health is found in Stephen A. Macchia’s Becoming a Healthy Church: 10 Characteristics.155  The ten characteristics were determined from a survey done among the Vision New England churches156 where Macchia served as its president from 1989 to 2003.  The study did not only help Macchia and his team to determine the ten characteristics, it also helped them rank the characteristics.  They are: Level 1 – How I relate with God: (1) God’s empowering presence, (2) God-exalting worship, (3) spiritual disciplines.  Level 2 – How I relate with my church family: (4) learning and growing in community, (5) a commitment to loving and caring relationships, (6) servant-leadership development.  Level 3 – How my church ministers and manages: (7) an outward focus, (8) wise administration and accountability, (9) networking with the body of Christ, and (10) stewardship and generosity.157

One of the key concepts for church health advocates is “balance”—a balanced pursuit and presence of all the essential elements or characteristics of a church.  Macchia stresses it.158  Schwarz speaks of the “harmonious interplay of all eight elements.”159  Rick Warren posits that “the five New Testament purpose of the church must be in equilibrium with the others for health to occur.”160  Nelson Searcy who takes a systems-approach to church health states that “The eight systems of every church are interconnected.  While some may be more developed than others, none of these systems can stand alone.”161  Hence, there is a need to ensure that all the systems in the church are functioning properly at a high level and in balance with one another.

Church health proponents have varying opinions as to what constitutes the essential characteristics of church health.  Sometimes it is simply the use of different terminologies or different ways of classification.  Barring this, the principle approach rightly recognises that the quality level of these characteristics in a church determine the overall health of the church.  Since they are all important, a high quality level for every characteristic and balance among them are key to the health of the church.

One of the features of the principle approach is that it is not simply theoretical and descriptive about what a healthy church should look like.  Many of them have developed tools to evaluate the health of the church based on their criteria of church health characteristics.  NCD has its 91-question Natural Church Development Survey.162  Macchia, who went to found Leadership Transformation Inc., developed the Church Health Assessment Tool (CHAT) with 72 questions covering the ten characteristics.163  These objective instruments are necessary to produce quantifiable data and measurable results to accurately assess the health of a church.

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