A Healthy Community

What (do I want to talk about)?

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vision statement

“At Narellan CCC, we aim to be a healthy community of faith.”

How will we know when we have become an unhealthy community of faith? It turns out people and communities are not so quick to recognise when they are at-risk.

Rescue Refused

Some at-risk people would rather stay put than be led to safety. That’s what helicopter pilot Iain McConnell and the rest of his air station crew discovered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina [which struck the US Gulf Coast, from Miami, Florida to New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005].

McConnell and his crew were told to keep five H-60 helicopters airborne on missions around the clock to airlift stranded people from their rooftops and deliver them to the Superdome in New Orleans. But they were only able to help relatively few survivors. “On our first three missions, we saved the lives of eighty-nine people, three dogs, and a cat,” McConnell said. “On the fourth mission, to our great frustration, we saved no one—but not for lack of trying. The dozens we attempted to rescue refused pickup!

“Some people told us simply to bring them food and water. ‘You are living in unhealthy conditions, and the water will stay high for a long time,’ we warned them. Still they refused.”

In truth, they did not know how desperate their situation was.[Jocelyn C. Green, “A Rescuer’s Journal,” Today’s Christian (January–February 2006); Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), pg 174–175.]

That people don’t often think straight in the midst of a natural disaster is just as common in Australia as it is in the United States. We build our homes on flood plains and in the middle of bush land, and are then surprised when our livelihoods get washed away or burned up. We drive into flood waters, sure that we can make it through, until we don’t.

I must confess that even yours truly once rode through flooding on a road WHILE ON MY MOTORCYCLE! There be idiots among us!

If we seem unable to make an honest appraisal of our situation in the middle of a natural disaster, would we recognise if we were at-risk of becoming an unhealthy church? Would we seek and accept appropriate help? Are we willing to commit together to preventing this from happening?

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Why (is the topic important)?

Your Elders and Ministry Team are diligently working together to develop and set the standard for a healthy church. Yet it is up to all of us to own the vision so that the strongholds that undermine church health do not get a hold on our community.

So What (is so interesting about what’s going on in the text)?

To help us recognise what a healthy church and an unhealthy church look like, let me highlight a couple of examples from the Bible.

An Exemplary Community at Jerusalem

The first church at Jerusalem was an exemplary community of faith (Ac 2:41-47).

Acts 2:46–47 CSB

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Because their community was so healthy they felt compelled to go above and beyond the call of duty, with some members even selling property to support the needy among them (Ac 4:32-37).

Acts 4:32 CSB

Now the entire group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common.

This was such a healthy community new leadership arose from among them —for example, Barnabas (Ac 4:36-37).

Acts 4:36–37 CSB

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus by birth, the one the apostles called Barnabas (which is translated Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

The first church at Jerusalem was a healthy community of faith, but that did not mean that every member was healthy (Ac 5:1-2).

Acts 5:1–2 CSB

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property. However, he kept back part of the proceeds with his wife’s knowledge, and brought a portion of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

While we may cringe at the severity of the discipline meted upon Ananias and his wife Sapphira, the fact Peter intervened and dealt with the threat to the cohesion and maturity of the community is commendable.

A community of faith can be healthy even if not all its members have a healthy faith in Jesus nor lead a healthy Christian lifestyle —Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds makes it clear both can be present (Mt 13:24–30).

Matthew 13:24–30 CSB

He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left. When the plants sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. The landowner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Master, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?’ “ ‘An enemy did this,’ he told them. “ ‘So, do you want us to go and pull them up?’ the servants asked him. “ ‘No,’ he said. ‘When you pull up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I’ll tell the reapers: Gather the weeds first and tie them in bundles to burn them, but collect the wheat in my barn.’ ”

While our community is mixed in terms of gender, age, culture, ethnicity, interests, maturity and spiritual development, we too can be of one heart and mind if we own our vision together, even bearing one another’s burdens, as we grow into the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).

A Divided Church at Ephesus

The challenge for us then is to grow a healthy church despite the presence of ‘weeds’. And it certainly can be a challenge.

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The harbouring of sin can tear a church apart. The church at Corinth was an early example (1Co 1:10–17), for among other divisive issues was condoning the sin of one who was in an adulterous affair with the wife of his father. Unlike with Ananias and Sapphira, the leaders at Corinth did not address this issue and, until the apostle Paul wrote to them, they did not discipline that person nor lead him to repentance.

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False or questionable doctrine can also tear a church apart. The apostle Paul spent a great deal of time at Ephesus, building up the church there and writing many of his pastoral letters from there. As he was later making his way to Jerusalem, on pilgrimage before his intended missionary journey beyond Rome, Paul stopped in at Ephesus to encourage the leaders there (Ac 20:17–38). He noted how this church was prone to false teaching and so its leaders must be vigilant, to protect the ‘flock’.

Acts 20:29–31 CSB

I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Men will rise up even from your own number and distort the truth to lure the disciples into following them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I never stopped warning each one of you with tears.

Tradition tells us the apostle John came to Ephesus after Paul and that he laboured in that city for many years (cf. Eusebius The Ecclesiastical History 3. 24. 1).[Edwin A. Blum, “John,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 266–267.] The Gospel of John was likely written in Ephesus.

Yet it seems John’s gospel was misunderstood by some. To correct the misunderstanding which had split the church, John wrote quite harsh words to them:

1 John 2:18–19 CSB

Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. By this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

It seems the split was caused by people claiming new experiences and revelations in God’s Spirit. These were a select group of Christians who knew the Fourth Gospel well, claimed to be inspired by the Spirit, yet challenged John’s understanding of Jesus Christ.[Gary M. Burge, Letters of John, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 24.]

Sadly, this division became irrepairable. The Ephesian church disappeared into history. No heritage left behind. No records.[Gary M. Burge, Letters of John, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 26–27.]

May we too be vigilant to protect each other from those beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that threaten to tear us apart and bring dishonour to the name of Jesus and his Kingdom.

Now What (are we to do about it)?

So what then can be done to become a healthy community of faith and maintain that quality?

While our first inclination will be to double-down on the spiritual disciplines of Bible reading and prayer, the negative examples I have just described demonstrate these do not always nor necessarily protect a community. There is faith that hurts and a faith that heals.

Church health requires other resources alongside good spiritual disciplines. For instance, Peter’s decisive discipline resulted in fear and terror, yes, both in the church and in the neighbourhood, but it also generated reverence, respect, honour.

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Greater West For Christ is a parachurch organisation that is committed to supporting local churches because they believe,

Church health is essential to enable a church to fulfill its purpose. Health is not the end in itself but enables the church to live out its mission. Our desire is for healthy churches living out what they are called to be.[gwfc.com.au/church-health/]

GWFC have identified seven characteristics of a healthy church that have proven to be an effective way to lead a church in a process of reflection and renewal:

characteristics

Spiritual Leader (Pastor). Spiritual leadership has always been an essential part of God’s care for his people. It is imperative that we understand how spiritual leadership will be expressed ---in myself, our Elders and our Ministry Team--- and there is a willingness for our leaders to take up that role in the fullness of God’s desire.

Clear Vision, Purpose, Values and Strategy facilitates a church through the process of understanding:

The wider neighbourhood presently and in the future

How and when to review, evaluate and revise vision, purpose, values and strategy as required

Good Governance Structure and Processes. We must review, evaluate and adapt our governance structures and processes to ensure they support the church’s vision, purpose, and values.

Developing Leaders & Empowering Members. We must continue to develop local leadership, identify next generation leaders, equipping and encourage each person to serve as God has equipped them.

Balanced Outward and Inward Focus. We must evaluate the focus of our church and refine as required.

Church Planting Mindset. We must reflect upon our investment into the body of Christ outside our community.

Purposeful Infrastructure. We must evaluate how effective our building, properties, staff and resources move our community of faith towards our stated vision.

I am happy to state we are well on our way to developing these characteristics.

Five Strongholds

However, GWFC has also discerned 5 strongholds that undermine transition to healthy leadership:

Personal Agendas. It is easy to lose sight of the health of our community when we are each working hard against each other to promote our own ideas, styles and projects.

Resistance to Change. Our natural tendency is to seek comfort, to stick to what is known. The unknown scares us.

Disunity. Balancing all the needs of our members requires many people and resources. We may not always agree when to focus on which need and how much.

Lack of Love Amongst its Members. To love one another requires us to hold others in as much esteem as we would like for ourselves, to bear one another’s burdens as much as we would like help for our own burdens. If are overwhelmed, it becomes hard to act in loving ways.

Pride. The apostle Paul warned, “For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one” (Ro 12:3).

We will each succumb to these attitudes at one time or another. They will become strongholds in our community when we do not recognise them nor deal with them appropriately. The longer this goes on, the harder they become to combat and the easier it becomes for them to undermine and destroy our community. It has happened to churches bigger and better resourced than ours and will continue to happen ---for example, Hillsong has had a worship leader lose his faith publicly (Marty Sampson, Aug-2019), they had to fire their celebrity pastor in New York due to his being involved in extramarital affairs (Carl Lentz, 2020) and just this week they closed their church in Dallas due to embezzlement by their pastors (Reed and Jess Bogard).[https://religionnews.com/2021/04/11/hillsong-to-pause-operations-at-dallas-campus-citing-leadership-failures/]

Your Elders and Ministry Team are developing the seven characteristics. It is up to all of us to combat the five strongholds that undermine church health, so that they not get a hold on our community.

The Credo of Rupertus Meldenius

When serving as the Senior Pastor at a Churches of Christ church, I learned the credo of Rupertus Meldenius. This statement expresses well a principle I believe should also guide us:

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In essentials unity, in non-essentials freedom (liberty), in all things love (charity).

When we can agree together on the essentials in beliefs as well as behaviour, then we can act with love toward one another by allowing freedom between us to disagree and to even not be as interested in each others’ ideas, styles and projects as we would like.

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Then we will be on our way to achieving our aim to be a healthy community, to the glory of God and the fulfilment of his Purpose!