Bill Owen

Just What Is a Healthy Church? Bill Owen

At one of our CHC semiannual gatherings, we decided to come up with a definition of "healthy church" that would help us articulate our understanding of what lies at the heart of the Center's work. We spent several hours crafting a definition. We wanted it to reflect both our own long years of experience in creating healthy churches in congrega-tions we had served as pastors and what we have learned from our years of working as consultants with church leaders from around the country.

We quickly came to a shared agreement about what metrics don't inform our under-standing of "healthy," specifically: the number of members a church has, the size of its budget, and how "successful" it has been. We've seen too many large, "successful" churches that exhibit unhealthy behaviors. We've also worked with too many small churches that exhibit robust health and a vital mission.

After many drafts, we came up with a statement that we feel captures the heart of our work. It also mirrors our understanding of the church's call to be the body of Christ in and for the world. This definition emerged from our discernment: A healthy church is a community of Jesus followers with shared vision, thriving ministry, and trusted leadership.

Notice that this is a qualitative definition as opposed to a quantitative one. We focus on who the community understands itself to be and how it exhibits that understanding in its shared life. Rather than looking at how much a church is doing or what it has accomplished, we look instead at how much that church follows in the way of Jesus.