Should We Even Be Talking About Church Health?

Blog post by Justin Nash

How do you measure church health? That depends on who you ask. For instance, there are 9Marks, eight quality characteristics (NCD) and 10 characteristics of a healthy church (CHAT), just to name a few. That’s why it’s important to begin by defining our terms. Church health and associated terms like revitalization can have greatly varied meaning depending on who you are talking to. In this post, I want to define both terms in a way that seeks to find the most biblical labels and descriptions for each.

Church Health

To begin with, “church health” is not scriptural language. It is analogical language derived from the descriptions of the church as a body (i.e., Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4). This can be helpful, as far as it goes, but it can also be distracting. I’d like to suggest another, more scriptural word as a substitute for health – maturity. Notice that maturity is the goal in each of these passages from the apostle Paul.

^“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. ²⁹For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:28-29)

^“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Remember that both of these letters were written to churches. They were intended to be read to the entire church and applied by the entire church as a whole, not just individuals (look at the plural pronouns). Notice the goal for the church –

“that we may present everyone mature in Christ”

“until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,”

Using these two passages, we can define church health as Christlike maturity in the whole body of Christ.

This is not saying that every single person in the church is at the same level of maturity. Rather, the goal is that the overall state of the body of Christ is mature. There will be new Christians, and long-time Christians in any church. The goal is that each of those people has developed to the level of maturity commensurate with their spiritual age. New believers in Christ should be immature but growing. Older believers in the Lord should be much more mature and still maturing.

Church Revitalization

Research suggests that somewhere between 85% and 90% of all churches in North America need some level of revitalization. Is that true? It depends on how you define revitalization.

Sam and Thom Rainer define church revitalization as “the process by which a church becomes healthier over time.”¹ Church revitalization is a process in that it is planned and intentional in its implementation. The goal of this intentional process is not church growth, but rather church health. Church revitalization is also not a quick fix, “silver bullet” solution. Revitalization is something that occurs over an extended period of time.

Pastor Brian Croft offers a needed addendum to the Rainer definition. He writes, “A church is revitalized by the power of God through the Spirit of God at work through the Word of God by means of a faithful shepherd of God.”² While God may choose to revitalize a church through the means of human instruments and their intentional planning and implementation, he is the only one capable of actually revitalizing a church through the power of the Holy Spirit. A committed pastor shepherding his people and preaching the Word of God are primary tools that God uses to revitalize a church. Harry Reeder offers one final aspect to church revitalization. He writes, “Without the oxygen of prayer to produce the flame of renewal, no amount of human effort can make it happen.”³

All of these definitions offer some critical thoughts about church revitalization. Combining these ideas with the idea that church health equals maturity, I’d like to offer the following definition of church revitalization:

Revitalization is a prayerful, biblically-driven, and Spirit-empowered process that is shepherded by faithful leaders to make a church more mature over time.

Or, more simply (and biblically) – revitalization is the sanctification of the church.

Given that no church is as mature as it ought to be, nor will it ever be, every church needs to be revitalized. Defining church health as maturity and church revitalization as the sanctification of the church offers clear and concise definitions of these two terms. Further, it roots the meaning of the terms in Scripture.