Doing Spiritual Good

I had a conversation recently with a couple of friends about what defines a healthy church. It’s often easier to recognize an unhealthy spiritual community than to clearly define a healthy one. Many people, myself included, have experienced church dysfunction firsthand - spiritual cultures marked by controlling leadership that wounds rather than builds up, and protects itself rather than sacrifices for others. But when it comes to describing what a “healthy” church community actually looks like, I struggle to define something I haven’t fully experienced.

One helpful starting point comes from Mark Dever, who defines discipling as “deliberately doing spiritual good to someone so that he or she will become more like Christ.” If that’s true, then a healthy church could be described as a community that consistently seeks the spiritual good of its people. Not for the purposes of perfection or external appearances, but for formation.

An unhealthy church is not simply one that has problems. Every church does. But it’s one that, over time, does more spiritual harm than good. Its leaders use the right language and the church may appear to grow numerically, but beneath the surface it forms people in fear and dependence. Its leaders send out confusing, contradictory messages instead of inviting people to grow in the freedom they have in Christ. It chips away at people’s confidence, and replaces it with dependence on a particular leader or church structure for truth and direction.

By contrast, a healthy church promotes and encourages healing. The word “healthy” shares the same root with “healing,” and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. A healthy community values repentance, and practices it regularly. It’s a place where both leaders and members are willing to acknowledge when they’ve messed up, and to change for the good of others. There’s a kind of flexibility in a healthy church, a willingness to bend rather than break people.

This kind of healthy culture shows up in tangible, but often subtle, ways. Leadership is marked by open hands instead of clenched ones. Authority is exercised with a posture of service, not dominance. People are encouraged to ask questions, and even to disagree without fear of being sidelined or silenced. The goal is to genuinely care for people’s spiritual well-being instead of manage or control them externally.

I’ve heard it said (too many times) that no church is perfect. But that statement should never become a justification for spiritual harm. There’s a wide spectrum between imperfection and unhealth, and wisdom requires that we learn to recognize the difference. Spiritual authority is not a license to control, intimidate, or silence, but a responsibility to lead with humility, because more is at stake than a leader’s ego.

Eugene Peterson once wrote, “I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily - open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.”1

In my opinion, and on the tail-end of my experience, I believe a healthy church is not defined by what it gets right, but how it responds when it gets things wrong. It’s a church that’s willing to change even when change is costly. That’s the kind of church I want to be part of; the kind that helps me heal from the things that once did harm.

H.E.A.L.T.H.Y.
     Healing is a goal
     Every church should aim for. This
     Attitude ensures
     Love is the final
     Test of a church's vigor,
     Health, fitness. Without
     Yielding love, strength is
     an illusion.