The Week in Review

The Life of a Healthy Church (part 2)

One of the principles given by this writer states “Let’s practice what we preach and put thorns in our laurels” (36). In this principle the authors point out that we tend to rest on our laurels – accomplishments of the past. “By putting thorns in our laurels, we learn not to rest on them. Just because a church has been effective in the past doesn’t mean it will be that way in the present or future” (36). The authors also state, “Talk, talk, talk. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It sometimes fools us into thinking we’ve done what we talk about. It keeps us busy, so busy that we have no time to implement what we’ve discussed” (44).


Another principle that our churches need to look at is principle number six. It states, “Invest the time and money to teach, train and retrain people to develop their skills and to implement quality ministry methods” (40). We tend to take people because they are willing and put them into positions of leadership or responsibility without preparing them for success. We tend to believe the Holy Spirit will help them. While this is true to a point, we are still required to teach how to do the job well. It is the responsibility of those in leadership, for example, to ensure their teachers are equipped to teach. “Churches seem so quick to put people into ministry roles with little or no training, and then we wonder why people aren’t more effective” (40). Scripture addresses this well when it states, “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6).


Principle nine states, “Build a team mind-set to avoid departmental barriers” (61). “The goal is to get us thinking and acting like a single team instead of many little teams” (61). Another difficulty we have is some are only concerned about their auxiliary and that can lead to conflict. “Inflexibility is one of the worst human failings” (101). (Come back next week for the next installment).