Since its inception in 2013, over 900 pastors and lay leaders have participated in our online ChurchScan Ministry Assessment. The ChurchScan functions much like a CARFAX does for an automobile. It provides a snapshot of a church’s health history. It covers five areas of potential breakdown: Trust in Leadership, Communication, Corporate Pulse, Mission/Vision Fulfillment and Historical Wounds. These areas have less to do with the dings and dents you might find on a used car, and more to do with the condition of its engine or transmission.
So, after five years of research, what are the top ten weaknesses in churches that scored themselves in the bottom half of the survey? And, more importantly, what can we learn from them? Here are the most common areas of weakness in churches listed in ascending order.
#10 Church leaders fail to consistently address church discipline issues.
#9 A church history that contains stories of injuries/wounds by previous pastors, boards or staff.
#8 The presence of unhealthy/destructive interpersonal tension within the church.
#7 The pastor and his family experience unhealthy levels of stress related to his role in the church.
#6 A church history that contains stories of injuries/wounds committed against previous pastors, boards or staff.
#5 The absence of a consistent sense of ministry effectiveness and momentum.
#4 The perception that one’s church is not accomplishing what Christ put it in the community to do.
#3 An absence of former leaders who are willing and eager to serve in the future.
#2 Few, if any, young people from the church are called into full-time ministry.
#1 A lack of conversions to Christ, resulting from church services and individual evangelism.
What strikes you about this list? A few things pop out to me.
- Internal condition impacts external mission. It’s as if the top half of the list (#10-#6) fuels the outcomes in the bottom half of the list (#5-#1). The presence of unhealed pain in a church’s history, unhealthy ministry stress and a lack of church discipline undermine ministry fruitfulness.
- As go the leaders so go the youth! This may be the most painful realization to swallow. When church leaders fail to deal with internal conflict in a way God can bless, the church’s ministry to their young people (conversions and future ministry candidates) wanes. Perhaps this explains other surveys that point to the departure of youth from their evangelical churches.
- Unhealthy churches become infertile. Perhaps the problem lay with the Bride. Maybe she is incapable of producing offspring because she is consumed with internal stress. Or, perhaps the problem lay with her Husband. Would Jesus entrust His new babes to an unfit mother? Whatever the cause, the result is heartbreaking and antithetical to the very purpose of the church.
One thing is obvious. Your church’s internal health as expressed by its history is something you cannot afford to let slide. Let me invite you and your ministry’s leadership to take the free ChurchScan Inventory found on our website (www.blessingpoint.org) and discuss it among yourselves. Or, you can invite us to walk you through it. God has called us to help facilitate healing in ministries where these traits exist. If your church evidences some of these traits, your ministry can experience a new spirit as you hear from the Lord about the underlying reasons for the state of your church and respond to Him.
Rev. Mark Barnard serves as President of Blessing Point Ministries which helps facilitate healing in ministries that have been wounded by painful crises. Mark authored Diagnosing the Heart of Your Church among other works. For more information visit blessingpoint.org or contact mark@blessingpoint.org.
