The Successful Church

What makes a church successful? What does success look like at your church? These are some questions being considered over at Wayne Newcomb's blog Equipper's Network.

Wayne says that we can measure success by examining "the priorities of Jesus and the New Testament writers." and "to study the lives of people in the Old Testament who were considered pleasing and favored of God."

He also says that to be a successful church it must:

1. Have a heart after God's
2. Be obedient to God's Word
3. Make disciples of all nations
4. Equip God's people

Wayne has more to say on the subject so go read his post HERE for the details. His post got me thinking about my own church, (and it will probably have you measuring the success of your church too!).

The PLT (Pastoral Leadership Team) at Northbrook is always evaluating the success of the church, which is good. One of the PLT members happens to be my SaLT leader, and Walt is always asking for feedback on just this subject, and I'm not shy about giving it!

At Northbrook, we have a Statement of Faith, and a purpose statement:

Northbrook Church is dedicated to leading people to
connect with and commit to the living God and the local church.

We exist to be a healthy, biblically functioning community of Christ followers that lives out a covenant love for God, a Christ-like love for people, a passionate commitment to truth, and an effectiveness in advancing God's kingdom.

We also a have some goals: Joyful Service, Effective Evangelism, Dynamic Teaching, Creative Worship, and Deep Community.

We are challenged to remember those five goals at all times and recently while studying The Purpose Driven Life, it was noted that those goals fit very nicely into the package of Purposes Warren lays out.

A successful church would have all five of those goals in a perfect balance. Can a church always have all of these things in balance? I think it can come close, and what is difficult is maintaining that balance. Consider the church's in the New Testament...some really struggled, they may be strong in one area, yet Paul had to write letters admonishing them for weakness in another, possibly the fact that deep community was threatened when believers started breaking into factions; following Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ. He pointed everyone to Christ, as it should be!

At Northbrook we have VERY dynamic teaching. We have very scholarly pastor's and teachers, most of whom are either alumni, or currently employed in some teaching capacity at Union University, one the the top private Christian universities in the nation. I'd say we have an element of creative worship through music, dance, drama and the emphasis that worship is not limited to just those aforementioned things, but also worship is prayer, study, and service. That is creative worship and currently the church is seeking to take worship "to the next level" (whatever that is) and working toward that goal. I think we have deep community at Northbrook and it was probably the first thing that drew me to this church, the obvious love for people, especially hurting people. An effective compassion ministry is an outcrop of that as well as a strong and growing missions ministry.

While there are many servants at Northbrook, I have mentioned to WaLT, a PLT member and SaLT group leader, when asked, that Northbrook's areas of needed improvement would include joyful service. We have a few people who are known for serving others, yet these are the people who are always called upon to help when there is a need. I think as Christ followers we are all called to serve! (I'm talking about me here too, because I fail to get up from this chair and help others as I should.) How can a church encourage the Body to serve, to have a servant's heart?

Another area we could improve in is evangelism. I posted about not seeing numbers last month in a post titled Numbers DO Matter! To quote myself "A healthy church teaches the Good News, the GOSPEL, it shares the faith! If a church is functioning biblically as the early church did in Acts, THEN THERE WILL BE NUMBERS! There will be numbers added daily, weekly, monthly and yearly! If a church is functioning Biblically it would only be natural that God would use it to add numbers to His Kingdom!" This is a point that Wayne made as well with his third point about a successful church which is to "make disciples of all nations".

What I have seen happen in some church's, is that when an area of weakness is identified, steps are made to correct that. But, eventually the scale just tips the other way. Now we have that same church being very strong in a once weak area, and then flailing in an area that was once strong. We need to strive for balance!

It is imperative that ALL members of Christ's Body pray for church leaders. God has given them an awesome responsibility and they can not do it without our help!

It is not the pastor's job to attain a successful church.

It is not the church secretary's job to attain a successful church.

It is not the deacons' job to attain a successful church.

It is the job of all believers to attain and maintain a successful church through prayer, study, service, sacrifice, worship, evangelism, etc. It is the responsibility of each individual believer to, as Wayne states so simply:

1. Have a heart after God's (seek God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength!)
2. Be obedient to God's Word (study His Word and obey Him!)
3. Make disciples of all nations (tell others about what Jesus means to you!)
4. Equip God's people (mentor other believers!)

A successful church starts with the individual believer.