At one of our CHC semiannual gatherings, we decided to come up with a definition of Healthy church that would help us articulate our understanding of What lies at the heart of the Center\'s work.
Rather than looking at how much a church is doing or What it has accomplished, we look instead at how much that church follows in the way of Jesus..
We focus on who the community understands itself to be and how it exhibits that understanding in its shared life.
Notice that this is a qualitative definition as opposed to a quantitative one.
This definition emerged from our discernment: A Healthy church is a community of Jesus followers with shared vision, thriving ministry, and trusted leadership.
It also mirrors our understanding of the church\'s call to be the body of Christ in and for the world.
After many drafts, we came up with a statement that we feel captures the heart of our work.
We\'ve also worked with too many small churches that exhibit robust health and a vital mission.
We\'ve seen too many large, successful churches that exhibit unHealthy behaviors.
We quickly came to a shared agreement about What metrics don\'t inform our under-standing of healthy, specifically: the number of members a church has, the size of its budget, and how successful it has been.
We wanted it to reflect both our own long years of experience in creating Healthy churches in congrega-tions we had served as pastors and What we have learned from our years of working as consultants with church leaders from around the country.
We spent several hours crafting a definition.
At one of our CHC semiannual gatherings, we decided to come up with a definition of Healthy church that would help us articulate our understanding of What lies at the heart of the Center\'s work
