How To Recognize A Healthy Church

What makes a church healthy?

When it comes to our physical health, we can pinpoint “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” fairly easily.

• Do we have the energy we need to accomplish our work each day?
• Are we experiencing any significant aches or pains?
• Are we running a fever or have high blood pressure?

All of those are indicators of our health status.

So, what indicates whether our churches are healthy?

Indicators of a healthy church include:

• More people are deciding to follow Christ each week, each month
• The percentage of the congregation involved in a small group and/or serving in some capacity at the church is increasing
• Church staff members are usually able to work reasonable hours (not lots of overtime)
• The church is growing (this doesn’t have to be 100s per month but some steady growth is always a good sign)
• Volunteers know what’s expected of them and they enjoy serving
• The pastor has sufficient time dedicated to developing messages each week
• People within the community who don’t attend the church still have a favorable impression of it’s impact on the community
• When you think of whether people are maturing spiritually in the church, at least a handful of names come to mind of people whose spiritual growth you’ve witnessed
• Church leadership maintains a budget, the church is debt-free or making steady progress towards becoming debt-free, and it has sufficient cash flow

Indicators of an unhealthy church include:

• Church attendance is steadily decreasing
• Staff members are exhausted and overwhelmed
• The pastor is so busy with other tasks that he regularly puts together the sermon on Saturday night
• There’s no succession plan for the pastor or other church leaders
• Fewer people are serving and those who do volunteer aren’t well-trained
• There’s a high turnover rate on the church staff
• Leadership (or the congregation) is reluctant to change and/or eliminate things that are no longer effective
• Debt is increasing, cash flow is tight, and sometimes the church is barely able to make payroll

These lists aren’t all-inclusive, so what would you add to them? Do you disagree with what I have included? Let me know in the comments. Agree or disagree – I’d love to hear from you.