Here is the first of a series of thoughts on ‘The Anatomy of a growing and healthy Church’ I’d love to hear your comments and ideas… so don’t hesitate to enter into the discussion.
Idea 1 – The leadership possesses the ability to find the will of God for themselves and to draw from others in inspiration and ideas yet make these ideas their own.
Its so exciting to see what God is doing in churches all over the world. There are obviously churches out there who are key influential churches, churches like Hillsong Church and others who have created an excellent model to follow. It is certainly not the only model, there are many models out there.
I have observed in my travels an interesting phenomenon. Many leaders take models like the Hillsong model and simply apply the outward appearance of what Hillsong does and expect that by doing this they will have immediate results and will grow like Hillsong Church has.
Look at the Principles not the Programme
Unfortunately, in just about every case that I’ve seen where people do this it does’t really work for them. You can even have the name and be doing all or many of the things these key churches do and you are not guaranteed growth or health. I believe that we can most certainly learn many things from larger churches and ministries. However, we need to look at the principles behind the programme and see how those principles relate to our unique situation.
Work with the culture
Every country has its own culture and that culture needs to be taken into account. Even within any country different regions and cities can be quite different and will undoubtedly have unique issues and characteristics. It’s not that we have to go along with the culture of the world around us but we need to find out how to bring the culture of the Kingdom to our city in a positive and productive way and in a way that relates to the very culture we’re hopefully engaged with.
What does God say?
Finally, I’ve always felt that as leaders we ought to pay attention to one key thing: The will of God. The will of God can be found in His Word, through prayer and seeking the face of God and by listening to the right voices around us… the wisdom of Godly counsel. This counsel can often come from the outside from a person or leaders who have no vested political interest in your church. One of the things I’m privileged to do is engage in this process when I visit many churches. Please feel free to contact me should you wish to book a consultation.
David