Demonstrations of the Biblical Purposes (Purpose Series 3 of 5)

A healthy church is one that strives to have all five purposes. Reflective ministry, that's been our foundation, but because of one, your unique gifts in ministry philosophy, two, the emphasis of the church's core group, they all have different emphasis and there are certain purposes that really resonate with them because of their background or experiences, just like you, and number three, the unique needs of the ministry focus group the church is trying to reach, churches often prioritize of emphasize particular biblical purposes.

If you think of this very similar to the biblical concept of spiritual gifts or giftedness, I think it will help you understand the dynamics that I'm trying to communicate here. For instance, the biblical concept of spiritual gifts is this: every follower of Christ is called, for instance, to teach; a parent to teach a child, but there is a spiritual gift of teaching. Everybody doesn't have this spiritual gift of teaching, but everyone does have the role of teacher in different contexts in life. Everyone is called to give, financially, everyone is called to give. Some people, according to Romans 12, actually have a gift of giving. Everyone is called to serve. According to Romans 12, some people are given a gift of serving.

When you think about that as a parallel, you then answer the question. "I have the gift of teaching. I don't need to show mercy, I don't need to give. I'm a teacher." If you don't fight against it, it will happen. It won't be that crass of a caricature. "I'm committed to discipleship, or learning, and I'm committed to mercy" and that you'd never say, or congregation would never say, that therefore, they intentionally neglect the others, but reality is, they do, and you will. Unless you are like a good physician, understanding the vital signs and keeping the health of that emerging corporate community in mind.

What are examples of health versus a lack of health, a sick church versus a healthy church, when it comes to these? Examples would be a strong mercy emphasis among the urban poor, one church might have this, and your church might not have it at all. That doesn't mean your church does not meet the criteria for having a vital sign of loving the poor, and showing mercy 

In other words, if your church plant or your church was evaluated, it would be evaluated as being healthy in that area, but it would not be evaluated as "Oh yes, I know that church. That's the church that has this radical focus on the poor." That can be a very healthy church, but it's just known as a church that is, like someone with a spiritual gift of serving, they are just gifted by God and called by God to be a servant. "We're all called to serve, but wow, do they serve!"

It's almost like we're all called to show mercy, but it's almost like that church is like a mercy church that God has sent to the poor in a very unique way. The danger with that is when people begin to think about their spiritual giftedness, the danger is they neglect all the roles. Every church, when you evaluate it, is very much like an individual follower of Christ. I have taken so many churches through evaluative processes, like church plants, it's a very brief time before you can figure out, if you look at these five purposes, what one or two really resonate with them, very much like spiritual gifts, it does appear that the way God normally works is not only through individuals who have unique giftedness, but it's very apparent throughout the history of the church and throughout missions, that God works through churches that often have unique areas of ministry focus, in light of the unique brokenness of a particular area, or the calling of that person, and those people.

There is, however, a big difference a healthy emphasis in any of these areas, we were talking mercy, and an unhealthy imbalance. A healthy emphasis is where you give strong emphasis to one or two purposes of the five we've been discussing to meet unique needs without neglecting the others. Unhealthy imbalance is where you are so focused on one or two of these purposes to meet unique needs, that you actually neglect the other purposes.

It wouldn't take you long to think through some of the characteristics of a church that had a healthy emphasis on worship. That would mean resources would go there, people would go there, time would be invested in this, that the worship experience, not just the preaching here, that the worship experience would actually be something that is a significant priority, so much so that you can tell. All I have to do is show up at a worship service, and I know how much worship is a priority in almost every church.

Unhealthy imbalance in the area? Most of their members, that's basically the experience. It's on a rhythm, sometimes weekly, sometimes not, but basically the whole experience of most of the people is simply come to that worship service, and that worship service is glorious, and you can have anonymity there. It just becomes the place where people just adopt a form of following Christ that manifests itself, not in a devotion to learning, or discipleship, or fellowship, or evangelism, or acts of mercy, but just a celebratory experience on a rhythm. It's almost like living from one spiritual high to the next. If you look for a discipleship, or you look for care for the poor, if you look for commitment to fellowship, it's often waning.

Just as a quick aside, I am not saying that large mega churches in cities that have hundreds, if not thousands, of people who do come to them, and that's all they do, are by nature, unhealthy. I've actually found many large churches where a senior pastor will say to me, "I can't help that all these people, they're not members. I can't help that hundreds, if not thousands, of people come in and out of here all the time, but I know there are acts of mercy for the poor. I know there are commitment to fellowship among the members. I mean, I know their commitment to discipleship."

Number two, the learning church. Usually a strong commitment to discipleship, usually a very strong commitment to expository preaching and teaching, often 30-45 minutes of in-depth expository preaching. The unhealthy imbalance is where doctrines and theology just becomes everything. I'll never forget going into a church once, and basically the entire worship service was a teacher. They had a few warm-up songs, and the teacher came out, and the teacher got on the platform and there were these big screens.

"We're going to look at the first six words of verse 14." They actually had, like they have in universities, this pull-up little desks. It was just like a classroom. They had a quick song at the end and the beginning. Then you began to study and examine the church, and you find out that it's a really unhealthy emphasis.

You just go down the line, the felt-need church: healthy emphasis on loving people well, versus the ingrown church. It's actually called, sometimes, a fellowship trust, just us for and no more spiritual navel gazers. If you're not proactively fighting it, people very naturally will gravitate, and those groups will become self-centered and they will lose an outward face. Breaking in to those churches, it's almost impossible. 

Same thing with the outreach, the soul-winning church. Healthy emphasis on evangelism, and seeing adults baptized. The other one is that you can have such an emphasis on evangelism, and reaching the lost, that you can be in direct violation of the big idea Jesus was communicating to Peter in the post-resurrection experience. 'Do you love me? Feed my sheep, tend my lambs.'

"Peter, you can show your love for me by how you tend, and shepherd, and care for my lambs." There are some churches that are actually too committed to evangelism, meaning they're putting energy into evangelism to the neglect of caring for the people of God, worship, and the other areas.

Same thing with the mercy church, caring for the poor versus just a mere social gospel.

It's a quick survey of the priorities, and you know, just intuitively, what's healthy and what's not. Most church planters are uniquely gifted for and passionate about one or two of the five priorities. This is why it's often difficult for church planters to establish a new church that has both a healthy emphasis on the ministry priorities that reflect that church planter's unique calling and gifts, and a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities, what we call the vital signs of the church.

The purpose of this exercise, for you to clarify one, or two at the very most, ministry priorities that best fit your unique calling and gifts, and understand how you can and should have both a healthy emphasis on these two that God has given you, and yet, a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities that we see listed here.