Picture of a Healthy Church

In my room, I have a couple of plants that my wife, Christina, keeps threatening to throw out, as they're just, well, plain ugly.  However, I've asked her to humor me, as I believe both of them are constant reminders to me of how God in Christ has seen fit to spread His glory to the ends of the earth through the body of Christ, which is the [local] church.

As the picture shows, a healthy plant sends out shoots, or copies of itself.  It expends great resources in doing so, as the entire organism will fill up one's garden much more quickly this way (the innate purpose and goal of the plant).  Though it is much easier to maintain 'control' of the plant by continually cutting off these costly suckers, which 'drain' the 'main' plant of much of its resources, it is ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, detrimental to the life cycle of the plant. 

Anyone who knows anything about strawberries knows that it is the new plants that extend from the home base that bear the largest and most juicy berries after a year of growth.  Statistics show that most church growth - that is, conversion growth (and not just the "church shuffle" of disgruntled consumers looking for a better worship band, less offensive message, or better youth 'ministry') - occurs in church plants, as they are vigorous, and have not grown comfortable in their comfy atmosphere (hip & inviting lobbies, professionals running profession ministries, coffee bars, and every other amenity available to make us forget every Christian has been called to be a front-line soldier advancing the line, with Jesus' banner of the cross, in a brutal battle).

In our consumeristic, market-driven culture where companies are 'successful' if they are large & profitable, Jesus' church needs to swim upstream & follow the NT mandate of costly-to-self church planting, rather than the comfortable-to-flesh North American model of the complacent, meet-my-needs-and-forget-the-world-of-perishing-sinners church.

I close with a verse that I think best sums up this memorable reminder to the church, and especially us as pastors, who are often prone to see ourselves as exalted CEOs rather than humble baton-passers in a gloriously rewarding marathon:

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. 2:1-2)

 May Christ give His church this glorious vision of what it means to make disciples of all the people groups of His world through faithful church planting.  May He give us many godly men who will be groomed as Timothy was to groom other planters.

To sum up: what then does a healthy church really look like?  To put it simply & soberly, a healthy church is one that seriously takes Jesus' command to make disciples, grow disciples, and train up godly men to plant godly, Christ-exalting, fruit-bearing, & church-planting churches.

Cover Your world with Your glory through Your church, Lord Jesus, even as the waters cover the sea!