HighPower eNews~~ Empowering Pastors for Growth & Health ~~ October 2007 |
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Feel free to forward this to a friend! NEW this month!
FactoidsTWO DEFINITIONS OF HEALTH: WHICH ONE IS YOURS? I just came across two different definitions of church health, one from Josh Hunt and one from Leith Anderson. They might be contradictory. I’ll present them both and then comment: The Key to Long-Term Health:
(Hunt, Josh. Double Your Class in Two Years or Less. Loveland, CO: Vital Ministry, 1997, p. 30. ) Key to church health: in-depth teaching & preaching of the Bible leads to health. Another Definition:
(Anderson, Leith. A Church for the 21st Century. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992, p. 128.) Definition of health here are all measurable facts which can be ascertained about any church: growth, giving, percentages in groups, number of years of tenure. These two definitions of health seem to be totally opposite; are they? One is based on measurable criteria, and the other on just being certain that you are teaching doctrinal truth from the pulpit. What happens if you are preaching doctrinal truth from the Word, making you healthy by the first definition, but are not hitting any of the measurable criteria of Leith Anderson’s definition? Are you healthy then? Is health measured by the effort of the Pastor (to preach doctrine), or by the results in people’s lives? (People in Bible studies, and high giving commitment?) So what is the definition of health? Let me ask it another way, if a heart patient goes in to see a doctor, does the patient get healthy if the doctor does a really good job of explaining the dangers of heart disease and the steps he needs to take to stay away from cholesterol? Or does the patient get healthy by staying away from fettucino alfredo, and exercising everyday? Obviously, when we look at it in the physical world it is very easy to decide what is health: we base health on results, not good intentions. So in the church world, when we read Thom Rainer’s definition of health as being simply doing a great job of scripturally-based preaching and teaching, we need to think carefully about this. Now, granted, he says that scripturally-based preaching and teaching “preaching engendered long-term health for the church.” But this is not a helpful definition, because there are many faithful pastors out there who are faithfully preaching and teaching the Word of God, but yet, their congregations are not healthy. So we need some additional help to discern health, and I believe that Leith Anderson’s definition is a good guide. Besides faithfully preaching and teaching the Word (& using SermonBase, I hope, to do so), there are some other steps which a pastor can take to encourage health in his congregation. What is helpful about Leith Anderson’s definition is that it is objective and measurable. He lists them as a 5% growth rate, w/ half of that based on evangelism. He also lists 40% in Bible studies (a percentage which is low by other’s estimates), giving at $1K per person, and a long pastoral tenure of at least nine years. These are measurable; they are objective. They provide useful guides to focus one’s efforts. Certainly if a person were to aim for these goals and skip Biblical preaching, it is all in vain, but these are useful guides. What would happen if you started to count actual decisions for Christ every week in your church? Would that change your focus? I think it would. We count what we value. Just as every church counts their offerings, and counts their people each week, a focus on counting decisions for Christ (your conversion growth), and people in Bible studies (your discipleship growth) would help you as a church to focus on the activities which engender health. And that is the true value of counting these things listed by Leith Anderson: they cause you to focus your activities on those which truly encourage an application of all of the great Biblical preaching being provided from your pulpit every week. For the growth of the Kingdom, Dr. Bill These and other Factoids can be found at ChurchGrowth Factoids WHAT I'M LEARNING RIGHT NOW IN THE AREAS OF MINISTRY COACHING, SIMPLE CHURCH, CHURCH GROWTH & CHURCH HEALTH Recent posts:
Check out the Blog here. CoachingThe number one rule of coaching is, “The client does the work.” This is a line from Bob Logan’s great book, Coaching 101. It is a very good guide for effective coaching. When he states that the client does the work, this includes everything, including thinking. If you want to be an effective coach you need to help your clients to do the heavy lifting of concentrated thinking. A coach asks powerful questions which promote clear thinking. You may ask your client to list some possible ways to solve a particular problem they are facing. When you do that, you then need to simply close your mouth and be quiet. Let them struggle with developing ideas which will work in their unique situation. Because if you give them ideas, rather than let them develop your own, you have moved from the realm of coach to consultant. The difference between coach and consultant is this: a consultant has the answers and shares them with his/her clients. But a coach believes in the capacity of the client to develop their own goals and actions plans, so the coach simple poses powerful questions, and then lets the client do the work. The best compliment a coach can get is when after asking a question, the client says, “Hmmm, that is a good question…”. Then it is your job as a coach just to be quiet and let your client wrestle with the answer to your question. They will be so much helped if you let them struggle through an answer on their own. Then they will be ready to fly on their own. If you break open the little egg-shell because it looks like the chick is having too hard a time coming out with their own answer, they will never be strong enough the fly. Let them think and work. You will be doing them a favor. “The client does the work” is not a maxim for lazy coaches; it is a helpful guideline for successful coaches. Dr. Bill For more Coaching help, check out HighPowerResources/Coaching SoftwareHighPower Library – is a simple software program to help you organize your library. And it’s free! For Pastors and Christian workers. Try it out free from HighPowerResources.com on the Software section. Click on HighPowerResources.com/Software to download your new Demo today. SeminarsDo-It-Yourself (DIY) Seminars are the name of the game. Check them out.Click on HighPowerResources.com/Seminars to learn more. Sermons, Dramas, Bible StudiesFaith Series I just shared this two-part series with my home church this summer, and it was well received. Faith has two sides; both courage and humility are aspects of faith. This series presents two contrasting versions of faith. Both messages are from the Old Testament, but each sermon links its truth to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just taught this series this July. This two-part series looks at faith from two sides: Humility and Boldness; both from the Old Testament:
Check out the Faith Series REVEAL – the newest book from the Willowcreek Assocation, written by Executive Pastor Greg Hawkins and a couple of others. It contains some astounding research results on 7 sample churches, on what helps people to grow spiritually. It is a very profound study which will have implications for years. For HighPowerResources Books from Amazon, click our "Books" link. |
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