Church Health for the Twenty-First Century
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Church Health for the Twenty-First Century - John Marshall Crowe
CHURCH HEALTH
FOR THE
TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY
A BIBLICAL APPROACH
John Marshall Crowe
eLectio Publishing
Little Elm, TX
www.eLectioPublishing.com
Church Health for the Twenty-First Century: A Biblical Approach
By John Marshall Crowe
Copyright 2017 by John Marshall Crowe. All rights reserved.
Cover Design by eLectio Publishing.
ISBN-13: 978-1-63213-287-1
Published by eLectio Publishing, LLC
Little Elm, Texas
http://www.eLectioPublishing.com
5 4 3 2 1 eLP 21 20 19 18 17
The eLectio Publishing creative team is comprised of: Kaitlyn Campbell, Emily Certain, Lori Draft, Court Dudek, Jim Eccles, Sheldon James, and Christine LePorte.
Unless otherwise stated, scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Publisher’s Note
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Table of Contents
CHURCH HEALTH FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Endorsements
Acknowledgments
Why I Wrote This Book
Introduction
Chapter 1 From Hopelessness to Hopefulness
Traits of Unhealthy Churches
1. An Absence of a Biblical Understanding of the Church or Ecclesiology
2. Lack of Spiritual Formation
3. Running the Church Like a Business
4. Clergy Abuse
5. Unhealthy Terminations
6. Lack of Love
7. Excessive Individualism
8. Have it Your Way Christianity
9. Unhealthy Church Leaders
10. Unhealthy Church Members Who Are Not Being Helped
11. Poor Pastoral Integrity
12. Poor Mental Health of Some Clergy
13. Has a Weakness Described in Revelation Chapters Two and Three
14. Weak in Several Areas of Church Life
15. Weak or Extremist View of Spiritual Warfare
16. Master, Motive, and Message
Hope of a Prognosis for Developing a Healthy Church
A Healthy Church Defined
Traits of Healthy Churches
1. Sound, Biblical Ecclesiology (the nature and mission of the church)
2. Master, Motive, and Message
3. Christ-Like Love
4. A Core Group of Healthy Christian Leaders
5. Clergy Who Are Spiritually Healthy
6. Clergy with Good Mental Health
7. A Strong and Balanced View of Spiritual Warfare
8. Healthy Ministries for a Hurting World
9. Strong in Various Areas of Church Life
10. Has Strengths Described in Revelation Chapters Two and Three
11. Healthy Families
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 2 From the Bible to a Church’s Spiritual Anatomy
The Bible
Doctrine
A Biblically-Based Ecclesiology
Ephesians
Ephesians Applied
Tradition
The Early Church Fathers
The Ecumenical Creeds
Jesus Christ and Church Health
Salvation and Church Health
The Holy Spirit and Church Health
Ecclesiology and Church Health
A Denominational Ecclesiology and Church Health
Which Approach Helps Develops a Healthy Church?
1. A Well-Functioning Machine?
2. A Psychological System of Relationships?
3. A Vital Spiritual Body in Christ?
A Church’s Spiritual Anatomy
Ecclesiology and Church Anatomy
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 3 Jesus—The Head of the Body
Ephesians
Revelation
Further Insights into Christ as Head of the Church
Life
Identity
Direction
Extra Comments and Questions
Characteristics of a Church in Which Jesus Is Not the Head
Characteristics of a Church in Which Jesus Is the Head.
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 4 The Church’s Musculoskeletal and Nervous Systems
Spiritual Formation
Harmonious Community
The Church’s Nervous System
Developing Healthy Leadership
Dealing with Trouble Makers
Why Troublemakers Are Not Confronted
Equipping for Works of Service
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 5 The Church’s Circulatory System
Biblical Differentiation
Whole Persons
Basic Wholeness
Interpersonal Wholeness
Wholeness and Emotional Triangles
Wholeness and Spiritual Maturity
Spiritual Gifts
Spiritual Context
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 6 The Church’s Skin
The Key to Healthy Skin
The Great Commission
The Great Commandment and Mental Illness
Biblical Framework
The Church and Persons with Mental Illnesses
A Wide Chasm
The Overlooked or Ignored
Why Churches Often Overlook or Ignore
Change is Coming
The Church & Families of Those with Mental Illnesses
The Church Offering Intentional Hospitality
How to Rate Your Church
What is Next?
Questions for Church Evaluation and Application
Chapter 7 Preaching and Church Health
Called and Ordained to Proclaim
Proclaim the Word
The Inner Dynamic of Preaching
Preach Christ
The Value of Preaching
Preaching Applied and Tested
Preaching to the Whole Person
Offering God Our Best in Preaching
More about Preaching and Church Health
More Than Preaching Is Needed
Charts Related to Preaching and Church Health
Questions for Pastoral Self-Evaluation and Application
Notes
Why I wrote this book
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
This is a different kind of book, and one desperately needed. No issue is of greater significance than the health of churches. And Dr. Crowe addresses this concern out of successful pastoral experience, a deep and quite proper conviction that the health of churches is achieved by centering on the Scriptures and especially preaching, and a practicality that discusses specific congregational evaluation and enhancement. At a time when discussions of church growth or congregational health draws heavily from dubious secular models, it is exciting to see a treatment that has a strong theological and biblical orientation.
David R. Bauer, Ph.D.
Ralph Waldo Beeson Professor of Inductive Biblical Studies
Dean of the School of Biblical Interpretation
Asbury Theological Seminary
It is my privilege to recommend this book to all pastors, lay leaders and denominational facilitators. Dr. Crowe is passionate about having healthy, Christ-centered, bodies of Christ. His poignant discussion brings readers to understand that Christ's church is His body. It has a physiology. And its health and weakness can be most effectively understood and addressed by eternal Biblical principles. I have had the pleasure to reflect with John over the years as he developed his book. I know it will be a blessing to all who read it, to their churches, and to the Body of Christ throughout all the world.
Rev. Thomas F Fischer, M.Div., M.S.A.,
Director, MinistryHealth.net
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my grateful appreciation to several friends and colleagues who have been instrumental in shaping this book. Some have been proofreaders, and some have been sounding boards. No matter the contribution, they have been valuable assets in seeing this come to light.
My gracious respect and thanks to Judy Hogan, Dr. James Smith, the Reverend Thomas F. Fischer, and the Reverend Darryl Zoller.
I am also grateful to Jesse Greever, Christopher Dixon, and everyone at eLectio Publishing for the opportunity to share this book and to work in partnership with their creativity and passion.
Finally, to my loving and supportive wife, Donna: my deepest gratitude. Your encouragement when the times got rough are much appreciated and duly noted.
Why I Wrote This Book
At the heart of God calling me into the ministry is my passion for seeing people becoming whole persons in Christ. While attending Asbury Theological Seminary from 1980-1983, I took a course on Healing and the Christian Faith.
I read Frank Bateman Stanger’s book, God’s Healing Community (Abingdon Press, 1978; now out of print, but secondhand copies may be available on the internet). It contained a brief testimony about a pastor applying biblical healing steps to a church body through preaching. The story of this pastor preaching on the steps to bring healing into the corporate life of a church served as a seminal experience for writing this book.
Another major impetus has been my experience as pastor of various churches. I’ve been a pastor at churches in a city, small towns, and rural areas, and was pastor of more than one church at one time in what United Methodists call circuits.
A third incentive for writing is the lack of church health literature from any other perspective than that of the systems theory.
As Anthony B. Robinson wrote, By and large, congregational health seemed, to judge by the literature, not to match much with either the core convictions of the Christian faith, theology or the Bible.
¹ To overlook, forget, or ignore the rich deposits of wisdom from the Bible and Christian theology is like building a house upon a foundation of sand instead of a foundation made of rock.
A fourth motivation for writing this book is the apparent lack of ecclesiology among pastors who graduate from seminary and from those still in seminary. Princeton Theological Seminary professor Ellen Charry boldly states, I am increasingly realizing that a number of our ministerial students have no ecclesiology to speak of. For them the church is a voluntary not-for-profit organization run like a local franchise.
²
My fifth reason is the contribution that the epistle to the Ephesians offers to church health literature. T.J. Addington is a Senior Vice President with the Evangelical Free Church of America. For two decades, he has been a pastor, consultant, denominational leader, and author. On Thursday, July 16, 2009, he posted an entry, Ephesians and Church Health
, in his blog, Leading from the Sandbox. I fully agree with his opening sentence: For all the talk about church health, possibly the most underutilized resource is that of the book of Ephesians which is, if nothing else, a primer on church health.
³
Introduction
Many of the churches I served as pastor received limited benefits from various church growth programs, both prior to my being there and while I was their pastor. Neither 12 Keys to an Effective Church, nor Rose Sims Church Growth Program brought many lasting results. I am not alone in my experience. This experience raises the question about the effectiveness of working on church growth before addressing the church’s health. These books and programs seem to assume a church is healthy. Making such an assumption is likely to be futile and very often wrong.
Not knowing if a church is healthy enough to use a church growth program is like sowing corn seed in a field that has not been plowed and fertilized. Very little corn will grow, and what does grow will get choked to death by the weeds.
During my senior year in seminary, I set a goal to work one day on a doctor of ministry degree. I also set up a folder in my filing cabinet with a copy of the application to the DMin program. This degree focuses on some area of the practice of ministry. It entails attending required and elective classes; continuing to serve as a pastor; setting up a committee of church members to work with you; doing a ministry project in which one is a pastor; using research methods to measure the outcome of your project; and writing a dissertation about the whole experience.
Thirteen years after graduating from seminary, a wonderful church turn around
experience at Franklin Memorial UMC helped with my being accepted into the doctor of ministry program at Asbury Theological Seminary in 1996.
A representative of the seminary dropped by for a visit. Upon hearing how God was blessing my ministry at Franklin Memorial UMC, he encouraged me to look into their DMin program. Not only was the experience of pursuing the degree a journey of faith, it also became a journey of personal and professional development.
My initial aim was to learn more about equipping churches for ministry and growth. Working on my Biblical Studies
paper on Ephesians 4:7-13 broadened and deepened my understanding of the Greek word καταρτισµον, translated equip.
I understood the application of its medical usage as focusing on the health of a body of believers.
When I studied the historic usage of the Greek word in Ephesians 4:13, I learned that it was also ...a medical term referring to the setting of a fracture.
¹ Like many pastors, I understood Ephesians 4:13 as a call to equip the church to become soldiers of Christ in terms of numerical growth; however, the word carries a richer meaning. As William Barclay states in his commentary:
This word’s military usage speaks of fully furnishing an army. Its civic usage speaks of pacifying a city, which is torn by factions. Its medical usage speaks of setting a broken bone or putting a joint back into place. The basic idea of the word is that of putting a thing into the condition in which it ought to be.²
That paper helped me understand that my theology of healing was too individualistic and my theology of equipping a church was overly program oriented. Thus began my journey of integrating my theology of healing with my growing understanding of the meaning of equipping.
By then I had moved from Franklin Memorial UMC to a church with a very unhealthy history. The district superintendent and bishop hoped that my ministry would bring that church into better health. I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of health problems. Things were much worse than they had been at Franklin Memorial UMC. That experience, however, did fuel my passion for church health and, now, the writing of this book.
After a short time at that very unhealthy church, I moved to become pastor of Gibson Memorial UMC. I continued working on my doctor of ministry degree.
Gibson Memorial UMC had recently split over contemporary Christian music in the worship services. Actually, this music issue turned out to be a symptom of a power struggle. During my first year in 1998, I learned that many in the congregation shared my outlook of church health being a prerequisite for church growth.
Before launching my church health preaching program, my mentor and I developed four dimensions of a church body that needed biblical preaching and teaching to help a church body have sound health.
First was the supra-macro dimension, which involves the outer global level of a church body, i.e. ecclesiology that is the doctrinal teaching about the church. Without sound doctrine, there can be no soundness in the body of Christ. At first, my anatomical analogy for this was skin, since it covers the entire body.
Second was the macro dimension of church health which involves the Christian relationships within the church as a community. Christian teaching can and should