What makes a church healthy or unhealthy? Number of people? Style of music? Amount of money? Elaborate facility? Not really. Church health, according to the Bible, is measured by far more significant standards. The following ten ingredients are essential to the true health of every local church.
Expository Exultation — At the very core of a truly healthy church you will find the faithful, expository, experiential, and worshipful preaching of God’s Word.
Biblical Prayer — Healthy churches know that God is glorified as The Great Provider as the whole church regularly depends on Him through truth-governed prayer.
Biblical Theology — The truth of Scripture dominantly shapes the whole life of every truly healthy church.
Biblical Understanding of the Gospel — The hope of the world and the health of the church depend on the Person and work of Jesus Christ—Who is the gospel.
Biblical Understanding of Salvation — When God converts a sinner to live for His glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ, healthy churches do not hesitate to give God all of the glory for that most miraculous exchange.
Biblical Practice of Evangelism — Commending Christ to our neighbors and to the nations is an essential ingredient of every healthy church.
Biblical Requirements for Membership — A healthy church responsibly guards the door into her covenant membership with the gospel shield of regeneration followed by Christ’s ordinance of baptism.
Biblical Church Discipline — Formative discipline by God, which comes to His people through the regular encounter of the ministry of His Word, and the loving and redemptively-designed corrective discipline of the church toward her wayward covenant members are twin essentials of church health.
Biblical Church Leadership — Healthy churches practice biblical ecclesiology: where Christ is the Head of the church; elders are His gifts to shepherd the body by providing spiritual leadership; deacons are His gifts serve the body in Christ-like humility; and the congregation as a whole embraces the responsibility to collectively affirm and implement the will of God.
Biblical Reproduction — The healthy church seeks to reproduce herself through gospel-based partnerships that expand the kingdom of Christ in the world—especially by planting churches both locally and globally.
** These ten essentials have been modified from 9Marks ministries.