Healthy Things Grow

Growing up my father was a pastor which meant we moved a lot, and I got to experience a lot of different churches. At each of these churches I heard a common phrase repeated often, “healthy things grow.” I have often pondered about the truth behind this statement. Beyond growing up a pastor's kid, I currently work with Middle School and high school students. In my view Middle Schoolers and High schoolers are some of the most unhealthy groups of people, yet, they grow. They grow physically, they grow mentally, and many even grow spiritually. In the same way, if a church is growing numerically, but people are not being transformed, does that make it a healthy church? In this blog I will talk openly about some of these local church dilemas. 

Do Healthy Churches Grow? 

The church I began at was a unique church to say the least. I began at a church in southeastern Michigan that has been on the top 100 fastest growing churches in America list.. It has got kids and student ministries that are growing and thriving, it has a women’s ministry, and a men’s ministry, however, ultimately people are being transformed. I never get tired of watching someone expressing their faith by coming out of the water of baptism. All of that being said, my church is young. When I began it was only a decade old, nearly the age of many of the Middle Schoolers mentioned in the paragraph earlier, and sometimes it acts like a Middle Schooler. The outside world sees the church as growing, thriving, and getting larger, however, inside the kitchen of the church, it often feels disorganized. It feels like the brain of a thirteen year old as systems and health begin to get established. So to answer the question, yes. Healthy churches do grow, however, a 3 year old church plant may be growing differently then a church celebrating their 25th anniversary.

Does Healthy growth mean numerical growth? 

I could write a few fluff paragraphs around this, but instead, I’ll just give you the answer, well at least my answer, no! I would say my church was a very healthy church for being a decade old, even though the staff and the financial department might disagree. The reason I know this is that lives are being transformed. Your church may have its own area of health, and those areas may have nothing to do with more butts in seats. In fact, I recently learned of a church out of Chicago that had not grown in a decade because they kept sending people from their own congregation out to start other churches. Does that make them unhealthy? Absolutely not.

Healthy things do grow, however, growth cannot always be tracked in the same way. 
Ultimately, this is not a post to compare your church with a list from a magazine, it is to look in and ask yourself is growth happening, and no matter where the growth is happening, how can you make sure you are a part of making sure it continues to happen in an even greater way.