What are the marks of a healthy church?
About a year or so ago, a friend of mine on Facebook posted a video clip for something called "9 Marks of a Healthy Church" by a popular christian leader.
Of course, on this guy's list "The Gospel" came in at #3, right behind "Expositional Preaching" at #1 and "Biblical Theology" at #2. In the #4 slot was "Conversion", followed by "Evangelism", "Membership", "Church Discipline" and (finally) that crazy idea that Jesus came up with - "Discipleship" at #8, and "Church Leadership" closed out the list. (We can't leave that one out, can we?)
So, of course, after some reflection I had to come up with the 9 Marks of our Mission House Church:
1- Giving 100% of our money to the poor
2- Loving one another
3- Loving others
4- Making disciples
5- Serving one another
6- Encouraging one another
7- Knowing and using our spiritual gifts to bless one another
8- Sharing meals together
9- Learning to be the family of God
BTW- Our house church has no expository preaching, no youth group, no paid staff, no programs, no board of directors, no building, and no bank account.
This is still the best thing I've ever done with the word "Church " on it!
kg
2 comments:
This, of course, is very good. The only addition I would make is a reference at some point, to the 'Centrality of Jesus Christ'. I know it is implied in all the '9'...so can we make it '10' - a 'perfect 10' if you wish...?
Boy, that simplifies things!
No silly unspoken hedge laws(that you don't know until they've been broken), no programs, no youth group, no white cracker nibblet with 2cc grape juice chaser.
Instead, hugging, feasting, loving, house painting, carborator repairing, garden weeding, loving, tile replacing, feeding, need-meeting, (did I mention) loving, and edifying the Body of Christ.
We could have never dreamed freedom in Christ could have been so indescribably rich outside of a building- more challenging, and requiring much more personal responsibility, eh? but rewarding indeed!
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