It’s no secret. My team and I spend much of our time helping good churches and leaders regain lost effectiveness. Renowned business leader Jack Welch, when asked about his most important task at GM, said it this way, “Fighting entropy.” It was his way of saying, doing battle with our tendency to lose effectiveness. We all share this challenge.
Well, in one of those churches and in one of those effectiveness conversations, a leader asked us the same question this way, “So what characterizes a healthy church?” What a great question. Stalling for time, I put the question back to the group and got a boat-load of possible answers.
However, as I’ve considered the question frequently since that meeting, I’ve come to believe there’s only one answer: reproduction. Healthy organisms reproduce, and the church’s main calling is reproduction. Jesus said that His followers will catch people (Matthew 4). And at the end of His earthly ministry, He turned that truth into a commissioning of His disciples (Matthew 28).
So healthy churches undoubtedly share many important characteristics, but the ultimate measure is the singular result to which He called us: reproduce disciples.
If you think exploring that question and a remarkably effective answer has relevance for you, then you’ll want to be at our SWCBA Annual Celebration . . . March 13 . . . First Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona. Check our website for details: www.southwestcba.com.
The Jesus said to them, “You come follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.” | 
