Twelve in 2012: Trends in Healthy Churches. Part II

          This is the second part of Tom Rainer's article on trends of healthy churches. These last 6 are excellent but will likely raise more questions than the first 6. Imagine a church that actually considered doing less? Cutting ministry or ministries so that better focus and accountability would be the result of what or how it functioned.          
          I love the fact that a healthy church is also one that wants to not only make disciples but mature disciples. Too many churches are content to pursue quantity and not quality. We are so superficial looking on the outside not even considering the inside of a person. Yet, Christ was unapologetic in His demand for heart purity and holiness, not exterior business or flash...So, give this a read, pray over what you read and allow the Holy Spirit to move you in the direction He wants to make your church a healthy, vibrant church in 2012!

1. These healthy churches have pastors who love the members. That love is obvious in their words, their actions, and their pastoral concern. It does not mean that a pastor is present for every need of a member of a church member; that is physically impossible. It does mean that the church has a ministry in place that cares for all the members. Above all, though, you can sense intuitively when you walk into these churches that the pastor deeply loves the members, even those who may often oppose him.
2. The churches allow their pastors to spend time in sermon preparation. Our research has confirmed over the years that pastors in healthier churches spend more time in sermon preparation than those in other churches. For that to take place, the congregation must understand the primacy of preaching, and they must be willing for their pastor to forego some areas of activity and ministry so he can spend many hours in the Word.
3. There is clarity of the process of disciple making. Such was the theme of the book, Simple Church, written by Eric Geiger and me. For the healthy churches, the ministries and activities are not just busy work; instead they have a clear purpose toward moving the members to greater levels of commitment toward Christ.
4. These churches do less better. They realize that they can't be all things to all people; and they shouldn’t have such a flurry of activities that they hurt rather than help families. So the leaders of these congregations focus on doing fewer ministries, but doing those few better than they could with an overabundance of activities.
5. The process of discipleship moves members into ongoing small groups. A member is almost guaranteed to leave the church or become inactive in the church if he or she does not get involved in an ongoing small group. These groups have a variety of names: Sunday school; small groups; home groups; life groups; cell groups; and others. The name is not the issue. The issue is getting members connected to ongoing groups.
6. Corporate prayer is intentional and prioritized.Prayer is not incidental in these churches. The leadership regularly emphasizes the importance and priority of prayer. The congregation is led regularly in times of corporate prayer.