Startling Statistics.

Statistics regarding healthy pastor-parish relationships are startling. Karen Krakower in her 1997 Internet article, “Clergy in Crisis: Who ministers to the ministers?” shares the following:

Nearly a fourth, 22.8 percent of pastors have either been terminated or forced to resign.

·          Nearly two-thirds, 62 percent, of the forced-out pastors said the church that dumped them  had also forced out other pastors-and 41 percent said the church had done it more than twice.

·          Nearly half, 43 percent, of the forced-out pastors said a “faction” in the church forced  them to leave, and 71 percent of those indicated that the “faction” membered 10 or fewer congregates.

·         Only 20 percent of the forced-out pastors said the real reason for their leaving was made known to the congregation.

George Barna’s 1998 Internet Press Release “Survey Provides Profile of Protestant Pastors” reports the subsequent sad news:

Long pastorates are increasingly uncommon these days. A mere 6% of today’s pastors-just one out of every seventeen pastors-has been at his or her current church for more than 20 years. The types of individuals who last for an extended period in one church are those in churches that are not growing numerically, pastors of fundamentalist churches, and those who rate their own teaching and preaching as average or worse. The types of pastors least likely to last for a prolonged term in a given church are those with the spiritual gift of leadership.

Furthermore, the Mission Growth Studies did some research for the Board of Higher Education of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Their study reveals the following church health issues related to clergy drop out:

People, both laity and clergy, are verbally and emotionally beating on each other;

Outward oriented clergy are consistently mismatched with inward oriented churches;

Failing to send only the most mature pastor and strong pastoral family in hopes of  bringing peace into a fighting congregation;

The extremely low level of trust held by pastors concerning denominational means of assistance;

A large number of pastors are in the advanced stages of professional and personal burnout;

Pastors’ wives and children stand in greater need of support than pastors;

Grossly unreasonable expectations too often lead pastors to neglect their own health and family;

Allowing churches with a long history of chewing up one pastor and family after another continue without any substantial intervention;

A few congregations who are held hostage by an EGO-centered minority who Edge God  Out;

and the need for pastors to address what drives them in ministry and live balanced lives.  (Klaas and Klaas)

             (See also Clergy Health Studies and Statistics.)

In addition, some denominational leaders indicate that “the most optimistic assessment is that 20 percent of our churches are functioning as living organisms and bearing substantial fruit. They estimate that between 35 to 50 percent are dysfunctional, bearing no fruit at all” (Anderson and Mylander 13). Despite tremendous church growth efforts, “it is estimated that 80 percent of church growth in recent years is a result of people moving from one church to another” (London and Wiseman 36).

    The Real Scandal of the Church.

If someone asked you to tell them the greatest tragedy of the American Church within our lifetime, what would you name?
Was it the scandals of the TV evangelists several years ago? Is it the increased interest in non-Christian religions like the New Age movement, Islam, and Buddhism? Is it the decrease of biblical values and morality among church people? No, as Robert Moeller wrote in 1994 in his book, Love In Action,

The well-publicized televangelist scandals of the late eighties did minimal harm to the reputation of the church in our culture—that is, in comparison to the true scandal of our time. The true scandal is the way Christians mistreat one another, fighting and conducting uncivil wars against one another in churches across our nation. (41)

This description and the statistics mentioned earlier help us understand why people are writing so many books about church health. They also make clear the reason for the recent works about spiritual abuse, sick churches and unhealthy conflict (Anderson and Mylander; Boers; Enroth; Haugk; Johnson and VanVonderen; Mains Moeller; Rediger; VanVonderen).

    Clergy Abuse.

Unfortunately, the lay leadership and members of unhealthy churches desires the pastor to do their ministry instead of leading them in the ministry of all Christians. Such a passive church becomes an audience and not a body. Then the audience becomes the critic of the latest pastoral performance. Ogden confronts such an unhealthy attitude by stating “the biblical emphasis is not on the ‘omnicompetent’ pastor, but a ‘multigifted’ body” (75).

Unhealthy churches also frequently abuse their pastors by “cutting their salary or slicing away at their integrity with gossip” (Hansen 124). As Rediger bluntly states in his book, Clergy Killers, “The growing abuse is also a significant commentary on the mental and spiritual health of the church, for how the church treats its leaders reveals even more about  the church than about the leaders. Only a sick and dying church batters its pastors.” (20)

One of the great tragedies of our day is the increase in forced pastoral resignations. Two of the leading causes of the crisis of clergy burnout, dropout, and kickout involve conflict over who is in charge and the lack of unity in churches (Ross).

The high number of such forced pastoral resignations are not surprising when seen in the light of a survey of one-thousand pastors and churches. Only 10 percent of the churches and their pastors said “the purpose of the church is to win the world for Jesus Christ” (Warren, Purpose 82).

All of the above church health problems help us understand the following statistics about pastors as a whole in America from H.B. London and Neil Wiseman’s  book, Pastors at Risk. Consider the following sobering survey results of the personal and professional lives of the clergy:

90% of pastors work more than 46 hours a week.

80% believe that pastoral ministry has affected their families negatively.

33% say that being in the ministry is a hazard to their family.

75% reported a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.

70% say they have a lower self-esteem than when they started in the ministry.

70% do not have someone they consider a close friend.

40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month. (22)

        (See also “7 Prescriptions for the Epidemic”  )

    The Old Medieval Business Model.

Rediger, author of Clergy Killers, points out a major contributor to the problem of poor church health. While we may think this is a new problem, it is as old as the Middle Ages. A study of Medieval Church demonstrates just how business-like it was. After all, how else can a non-profit organization build a St. Peter's Basilica at the level of wealth it is? Like the Reformation of Martin Luther’s day, we need a similar renewal today.

Whenever churches operate from a business model that does not view pastors as spiritual leaders of a mission, they become sick (19-20, 26-27, 53). Often, pastors learn such a business, competency, performance model in seminary. As Brewer points out, “In the broad sweep of learning that comprises seminary education, the spiritual formation of the minister remains largely neglected. Pastors lead the church in the way they are trained with a primary focus upon competency and performance” (17). With pastors who have learned to place a premium on human technique and control in pastoral ministry, churches learn this unhealthy business model from their pastoral leadership.

When the business model replaces the biblical model of mission in a church, the consequent blood filled waters breed clergy killers. As Rediger accurately points out,

Because the church…has succumbed to the business model of operation…the pastor has become an employee, and parishioners the stockholders/customers. The pastor is hired to manage the small business we used to call a congregation. This means his primary task is to keep the stockholders happy; the secondary task is to produce and market an attractive product. When this mindset infects    the  church, the church is no longer a mission but has become a business. Parishioners and pastors agree that participants are “entitled” to a fair return on their investments; that any member can disrupt normal polity; that employment contracts and evaluations only of the pastor are the norm; and that evangelism is essentially a marketing effort…the budget is necessarily the bottom line…This is the reverse of how a healthy congregation functions. When the church operates as a mission, the pastor  is “called” rather than hired. He “serves” God first, and the denomination and congregation second.

Whether parishioners “like” or “dislike” the pastor is irrelevant, for the pastor comes with authority to nurture and lead them spiritually. Liking and disliking are the parishioners’ problem, not the pastor’s.  (53)

A general sense of entitlement is growing in the church, as well as in society. Church members feel entitled to comfort and privilege. It a pastor does not please  them, they feel free to criticize and punish. The business mentality that pervades the church says if the CEO (pastor) does not produce, the pastor should be fired.  (20).

The market-driven business model is unhealthy for more than only the pastor, the pastor’s family, and the congregation. It is also unhealthy for the evangelistic outreach of the church. While various marketing campaigns attract crowds of people, many are leaving in their search for a community of truth, reality, and authenticity (Dawn, Hendricks). Does this factor help us understand some of why the majority of church growth in America involves the transfer of people?

    Broken Homes and Dysfunctional Persons.

Another part of the church health problem involves the breakdown of the home. London and Wiseman share the following startling information:

Now dysfunctional family relationships are so common that a high percentage of individuals in every congregation carry scars from a fractured childhood. They look to the church as their most convenient help. When churches ignore these pains in persons in their fellowship, the unresolved issues pop up in strange and unexpected ways. Like an acre of dandelions, the crop gets worse when ignored. (45)

Also, Carder et al. writes,

Since churches are made up of families, it only makes sense that they often operate exactly like the family-of-origin pattern of the dominant leader and/or of the congregants. Many of us select the church system we do because of the unfinished business we carry from our family of origin. (17-18)

As Bill Hybels points out in his book Rediscovering Church,

In an increasingly dysfunctional society, individuals are becoming increasingly aware of their emotional needs, their loneliness, and their need for help. Victims of  child abuse need a safe place to heal. Those recovering from divorce need understanding and guidance. Single parents need emotional support and  tangible help. Though many of these people reject the distant-God image and impersonal church environment of their childhood, they long for (spiritual re-parenting) and for a loving “family to take them in” (15).

This is another reason why the business model is unhealthy. It tends to crush wounded people.

Knowing the brokenness of today’s society helps us to understand the new challenge in developing leaders and ministries within a church. According to Dale Galloway and Kathi Mills in the text, The Small Group Book, “Most churches today are filled with broken, bruised, inexperienced converts, but few healthy, dedicated disciples. That’s why it is so hard to find enough competent, qualified and willing leaders to begin and maintain needed ministries” (14).

Any leadership team composed of unhealthy, wounded, persons offers little help to the health of a congregation. For one thing, they cannot help prevent a  church and/or its pastor from a hostile take over. Like a foreign mold of church life and ministry, these takeovers sometime sneak in like a ‘Trojan Horse’. These foreign molds are formed by the hidden agendas and out-of-order lives of some who transfer in or who arise from within a church (Crowe and Fischer, “Dealing with”; Galloway, 20/20).

Instead of wallowing in frustration, pastors can plan to develop leaders by first working on the Christian discipleship of their leaders and potential leaders on a one on one basis and in small groups. However, occasionally the dysfunctional issues of a church member in a voluntary ministry role, an elected office, or a staff  position expresses itself as some disorder behind various religious masks (Oates; Pate and Pate). Whatever their problem, these Extra Grace Needed people need  help. Sometimes, their issues obstruct them in fulfilling their roles. When that happens, take steps of loving action for their health and the health of the church. This  means graciously informing then that their lives are out of order. Then point them toward a time out of healing. Small groups focused on dysfunctional issues related to boundaries, past hurts, etc. can help such wounded brothers and sisters in Christ find holy wholeness in Jesus (Crabb, Thompson).

    Wounded Healers: Abused or Abusive?

The dysfunctional issues of either pastors and/or their families sometimes express themselves as different dysfunctions behind various religious masks as well (Oates, Wayne C; Pate, Marvin and Sheryl L. Pate). Conrad Weiser’s book, Healers: Harmed & Harmful, shares the following bleak description:

The literature about church professionals or congregations often presents health as the predominant condition and makes sickness or dysfunction the exception. The truth seems darker--in fact, the data indicate the reverse. As life-stage theoreticians have indicated over the last few decades, change--not stability--is the norm, and change moves toward dysfunction and disequilibrium, not toward health. (4) 

If one-quarter to one-third of the clergy are at risk or operating at less than mature levels, then each congregation served by this portion of the professional population will remain in or move toward immaturity. Five to seven years are needed for a congregation to grow and heal after an inadequate ministry. If the average length of a  ministry in one place is seven years or less, then at any one point in time as many as 60 percent of all parishes are dysfunctional or potentially so--no small systemic  issue. Mature pastors can spend most of their time cleaning up dysfunction and immaturity in parish after parish in an endless circle. What clergy-person wants to  undertake the task of establishing healthy functioning while knowing that this congregation has a two-out-of-three chance of becoming dysfunctional again? It is as if healthy pastors are window washers who create a clear vision for only brief periods of time until the glass becomes clouded and distorted again. (6)

His book highlights the imperative need of all clergy to heed the call to physical, mental and spiritual fitness. Otherwise, healthy pastors will continue cleaning up after an  at-risk clergy person explodes like a time bomb.

A close study of Christian leadership helps one begin to understand our need as pastors to grow healthier ourselves. Then pastors can become developers of  leadership teams and to act as change agents for the sake of building churches focused on healthy church growth. In light of these observations, Rick Warren  contrasts the skills needed for growing a church and those needed for building a healthy church.

The skills may not be all that different, but growing a healthy church depends on the personal character of the leader. It is possible for an unhealthy pastor to lead a growing church, but it takes a healthy pastor to lead a healthy church. You can’t lead people further than you are in your own spiritual health. (“Comprehensive Health” 22)

    Penetrating Church Health Questions.

Church growth literature depicts the practical fruit of approaching church health from a biblical, organic model. At the heart of this matter are three questions primarily for church health that pastors need to ask themselves, the staff, the officers and the congregation.

·                     “Who is our master?” (Warren, Purpose 71) Jesus is truly Lord of a healthy church. Unhealthy churches are mastered by tradition, personality, finances, programs, buildings, events, or by seekers.  (77-79)

·                     “What is our motive?” (Purpose 71) The Holy Spirit provides the motive of God’s love in our hearts. He provides us with the power to be Jesus’ witnesses (Galloway, 20/20 43-56).

·                     “What is our message?” (Purpose 71) The master and head of the church, Jesus Christ, gives us our apostolic message. (Hunter Church for 28-30)

Warren’s three questions concerning church health can also be applied to church leaders. The inner orientation of unhealthy church leaders is on institutional   matters while that of healthy church leaders are on matters of mission (Easum and Bandy 12). Unhealthy church leaders could easily support a church day care  because it is a nice service to the community and brings in additional income. Healthy church leaders will support it for the sake of reaching into homes of the  community to share the transforming Gospel. The various motives for pursuing a stewardship campaign or writing a new mission statement also illustrates the contrast  between healthy and unhealthy church leadership (Easum and Bandy 13-14).

    A New Definition of Church Health.

My research considered the mechanistic and organic approaches to defining church health. I favored an organic approach rooted in basic Christian teaching  about the Church.

    Current Definitions Critiqued

Peter Wagner’s book, Your Church Can Grow: Seven Signs of a Healthy Church, launched a new direction for the twenty-year-old church growth movement. Since 1976, church growth literature has focused on church health or vitality. While Wagner defines church growth, he never offers readers a compact  definition of church health. Each of his seven chapters concerning the signs of church health focuses on their contribution to church growth.

Wagner contends that a growing church will demonstrate vitality in most of the following seven signs of a healthy church:

A pastor who is a possibility thinker and whose dynamic leadership has been used to catalyze the entire church into action for  growth.

A well-mobilized laity which has discovered, has developed, and is using all the spiritual gifts for growth.

A church big enough to provide the range of services that meets the needs and expectations of its members.

The proper balance of the dynamic relationship between celebration, congregation, and cell.

A membership drawn primarily from one homogeneous unit.

Evangelistic methods that have proved to make disciples.

Priorities arranged in biblical order. (67-68)

His one sentence description of the pastor’s leadership role in the first sign could lead to a focus upon personality and task orientation alone. However, his chapter on  this first sign speaks more of earning the authority to lead through building loving relationships with the people. From a foundation of mutual love and trust between  pastor and people arises the second sign of a healthy church; the laity are liberated to discover, develop, and use their gifts for ministry.

If these first two signs are in place, the next five could naturally develop from that foundation. The seventh sign of having their priorities ordered biblically  could influence such healthy development. The biblical ordering of a congregation’s life means majoring on bringing people to God more than on increasing attendance  of programs. Healthy churches do this because their members have become new creatures through trust in Jesus and daily live for God. They also do this out of their  commitment to the body of Christ and to Christ’s work in the world (Wagner 180-182).

Other works explored the contribution of worship, small groups, lay ministry and pastoral leadership to church health (Callahan, Schaller and Tidwell).  These books either ignored or assumed a church’s passionate spirituality and unity in Christian love. They also failed to address the place of biblical teaching  concerning the Church in shaping a congregation. Like Wagner’s books, these books view a church as a machine. From their mechanistic view arises a rational  analysis and solutions to make a church function more effectively. As James Hopewell points out in his book, Congregation Stories and Structures, “Mechanistic  images power most of Wagner’s points: dynamics, catalysis, mobilization, size, range, balance, unit, priority and order” (25). For Wagner, Lyle Schaller, and others,  “the primary need of churches today is the rationalization of congregational process and the animation of social will to achieve results” (Hopewell 26).

A work which takes a contrary viewpoint to the dominant mechanistic approach is Win Arn, Carol Yquist, and Charles Arn’s Who Cares About Love?  Their research noted a strong relationship between Christian love and church growth. Their book presents these findings and offers useful steps for helping churches to  grow more loving. His work developed a tool for measuring how loving a congregation or even a whole denomination is perceived to be.

The approach of Arn, Yquist, Arn; Rediger, and others to a church is organic not mechanistic. Such a view recognizes the variety of people composing  congregations and views the Church more like a complex, maturing organism. An organic approach to a church usually has three characteristics. First, the whole of a  church is greater than the sum of its unique parts. Second, a church is a dynamic, self-modifying organism due to the interaction and adjustments between its  subsystems. Third, the subsystems of a church share its systemic purpose and are responsible to each other for the church’s wholeness (Hopewell 26-28).

    Two Approaches for Evaluating Church Health.

One might use at least two different approaches to evaluate the health of a church. One could use a mechanistic or a whole-person approach.

A mechanistic approach would assess church health based on a single evaluative focus on institutional behavior. Such a focus asks how many people are  attending, giving, serving, and praying. On the one hand, it elevates the significance of outward actions related to church involvement as an organized institutional  corporation. On the other hand, it unintentionally devalues the person’s thoughts, feelings, spirituality, relationships, and personal behavior related to the church as a  living corporate organism. Unfortunately, these churches typically produce an inactive membership of 40 percent to 50 percent of whom half may attend monthly while  the other half does not come at all and where one-eighth of the people make the church function (Hunter, Doing Church 4).

On the other hand, a whole-person approach recognizes that the outward actions of church involvement apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ are unhealthy. Such a focus recognizes that the actions of attending, giving, serving, and praying are supported by a person’s thoughts, feelings, spirituality, relationships,  and personal behavior. Here is helpful list of signs of congregational health:

Infectious smiles, laughter, and celebration (not flippancy)

A pandemic sense of reverence and respect (not piousness)

A spreading witness to God’s salvation (not parochial triumphalism)

Fitness in organization and maintenance (not careless shabbiness)

High levels of affirmation and recognition (not jealousy)

Exploratory learning and programming (not stodginess)

Allergic reactions to injustice (not a sense of entitlement)

Quick recuperation form set-backs (not victim-thinking)

Passionate stewardship (not possessiveness)

Chronic interest in negotiating differences (not competitiveness)

Persistent positive expectations (not complaining)

Sensitivity to each other’s needs (not exploitation)

Efficacious care for pastors (not employer-employee attitudes)  (Rediger 184).

    Summary and Conclusion.

Years of working various church growth programs have left the North  American continent as “the only continent where Christianity is in decline” (Moore 1). We see the visible evidence of decline in the increasing number of church  closings, clergy health problems, destructive church conflict, and pastoral dropouts. Sometime there is unseen evidence of decline in some churches that appear to  thrive outwardly. Their infrastructure’s sickness remains hidden deep inside for a season. Many of these unhealthy churches function solely from a secular business  model by crunching numbers about attendance, giving units, numerical growth, and programs. Therefore, the  doctrinal formation of the congregation’s spirituality,  attitudes, behavior, thinking, and relationships is ignored for the sake of keeping the machine running. Number crunching leads to people crushing as Dwight Carlson  points out in his book: “When we focus on these external things, all too often we neglect and inadvertently hurt the wounded among us” (117).

Many churches have benefited very little from various church growth programs over the years. While churches need better attendance, stronger finances,  more involvement, and increased membership, something deeper is required to tie everything else together. The biblical focus of being church by God’s free grace in  Jesus Christ provides that missing something. It involves the biblical formation concerning the church for people in and between each subsystem of a church body as a  living system in Christ. Without such biblical formation, the outer functions of doing church evaporate when divorced from the inner substance of being church. This  assertion formed the core of my approach to developing a healthy church.

    The Penetrating Question of Church Health from Revelation.

The book of Revelation portrays Jesus Christ standing amidst the churches with fiery eyes examining their faith according to the measure of their love for  God and others. Jesus said that by our love, people would know that we are his disciples. Several NT verses speak of the importance of brotherly love within the  church. In particular, the NT speaks of faith as demonstrated by loving truthfully in our attitudes, actions, and speech. If a church does not have loving relationships  within itself, strangers and those in need are in trouble.

If the relationships with a congregation are angry, tense, irritable, out of biblical balance and otherwise not loving, then strangers, those in need, leaders of  the church and others mentioned in Hebrews chapter 13 are in trouble. They will not find the healthy Christ-like love that the whole NT calls us to demonstrate.  Biblically speaking, the fiery eyes of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ scan the churches of God’s world, our country, our county, and our community. Jesus  wonders if he will find faith on earth upon his return. He knows the love of many will grow cold because of sin hardened, embittered, unforgiving, hearts.

Jesus is looking for faith filled churches whose love for God and others is not lukewarm. Jesus is looking for faithful churches who have not left their first  love for God, each other, the stranger and those in need. He tells lukewarm churches that he feels like throwing up and calls them to repent. He warns those who have  left their first love like the church at Ephesus that unless they repent, he will take their lamp stand for God is a consuming fire. The good news is that as the Ephesian  church heard Jesus’ words calling them to repent, churches are returning to their first love Jesus Christ. Other congregations have acquired the fire of God’s love  afresh so that they are no longer lukewarm in their love for God, each other, and others.

As he did in the book of Revelation, Jesus is encouraging the faithful to keep on for their labor of love in the Lord is not in vain. May the cry of our hearts  be “Lord, I want to be a Christian, Lord I want to be more loving in my heart.” May God’s love divine descend upon our hearts and set our hearts aflame a new with  love for God, for each other, for strangers and for those in need. May we together serve God acceptably by holy, Christ-like, loving attitudes, actions, and words for  our God is a consuming fire!