I’m fortunate to have the oppor-
tunity to serve churches with a
variety of ministry approaches and
philosophies. Because I facilitate
next steps rather than prescribing
a specific ministry approach, I get
to help many different types of
churches. Based on that experience,
I can confirm that many different
strategies work. In fact, if someone
claims to have the one way to grow a
healthy church, you should probably
turn and run in the other direction.
I’ve also been engaged in
different roles in church ministry for
more than two decades. During that
time I’ve seen different iterations of
ministry strategies from the seeker
model to purpose-driven to cell-
based to emergent to missional and
more. In my opinion, some of those
strategies work better than others,
but I’ve also seen healthy, growing
churches that embrace versions
of all those strategies. By the same
token, just because you use a seeker,
attractional model doesn’t mean
you have a healthy church. And just
because your church leans missional
doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy
either.
Regardless of the strategy you
use, one sign of health is the fruit the
ministry produces. Jesus reminded us:
“A good tree produces good fruit,
and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
A good tree can’t produce bad fruit,
and a bad tree can’t produce good
fruit” (Matt. 7:17–18).
So, what is the fruit we should
be watching for to confirm if our
tree is healthy? It would be good
for you and your team to come to
agreement on that question, but
I’m assuming one type of good fruit
would be new disciples of Jesus.
After all, Jesus’s final challenge to
his followers was to “Go and make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach
these new disciples to obey all the
com- mands I have given you. And
be sure of this: I am with you always,
even to the end of the age” (Matt.
28:19–20).
Let me state the obvious here.
We’re supposed to make new
disciples. We’re supposed to baptize
and teach new disciples. That, at the
very least, is part of the good fruit.
What that suggests is that if a group
of thousands of people gathers for
worship and teaching on Sunday,
but the church is not producing
new disciples, that church is not
healthy. If a church is effectively
connecting almost everyone who
attends worship into home groups or
Sunday school classes or Bible studies,
but it’s not producing new disciples,
that church is not healthy. If people
gather for worship and then scatter
missionally into the community to
share the gospel, but the ministry isn’t
producing new disciples, that church
is not healthy.
Stonecreek Church in Milton,
Georgia, took this challenge seriously.
They launched a 365 Campaign
based on the picture of the early
church in Acts. During the cam paign,
they were praying specifically that
365 people would be saved. The
number was based on one person
representing one day of the total
year. This was a big prayer for a
church of just over 1,200 people.
Every time someone accepted Christ,
they lit a lightbulb on a giant 365 sign
in the lobby. That visual was powerful
for the church, and it kept the priority
in front of them for the entire twelve
months.
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