Is Church Healthy for You?
Is church healthy for you? What a question for Holiness Today readers!
Since most of us attend vibrant, healthy, loving churches we easily say with the psalmist "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the LORD" (Psalm 122:1, KJV). Most of us easily find God in the presence of His people. And we find health and healing within the fellowship of a church.
However, too many of us have been hurt by unhealthy churches. Many have been wounded and are no longer attending a church.
So is church healthy for you? It depends.
Churches exist because God called us into fellowship with Him and with each other. Church was, and still is, God's idea. Christ "loved the church and gave Himself up for her" that He might present a holy and blameless church (Ephesians 5: 25-27).
When the church lives as God intended, people are made whole. Jesus gave a new command for His followers: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John 13:34). Paul told members of the church in Galatia to "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Church members are called to a life of loving fellowship.
The Church—God's Idea
Church is a wonderful idea, as are all of God's ideas! The local church meets many of the basic needs we experience. Humans have basic needs, including the need for a God who offers reconciliation. We need to be able to confess and experience forgiveness. God desires to use churches as mediators of His grace, rather than conduits of condemnation. The community of faith should allow—and even encourage—confession so they can remind each other of God's desire to forgive.
Humans have other basic needs that are met though church.
People need a sense of purpose or meaning. People need to experience being loved. The community of believers can fulfill the need for acceptance, for belonging and identity. We humans are created for fellowship. Life on this earth can be tough sometimes! Where can people turn and find safety? Hopefully, they can turn to the church. God can use a church body to give people courage and strength to face the difficulties of life. The church can offer hope!
When we share a "Nazarene Gourmet Buffet" (a.k.a. church potluck dinner), God fellowships with us. When the body of Christ responds to each other with compassionate care and gracious support, God provides health. Our churches also provide some health-inducing elements.
Spending time in God's presence is healthy for us. Prayer is central to the life of the Christian and the operation of any congregation. What an amazing privilege! We are invited to make our requests to God himself! And God's peace, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts (Philippians 4:6-7). Through prayer, God strengthens, enables, heals, guides, and gives rest. The fellowship of believers in our churches depends on members' prayerful intercession for one another.
Worship is another element of church life that's healthy for us. We worship because God alone is worthy of our worship. But worship also benefits us. When we forget about ourselves and others and focus on God, we find that He is already present. When we let ourselves be distracted by things such as music style, adolescent dress, or sanctuary temperature, we miss time with God. But when we join the corporate celebration, God works graciously in our lives. When we listen to His preached Word, we hear Him and experience His redemption. We were created to come together with God's family regularly and worship. God's Sabbath rest involves trust and sacred assembly. So "let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another" (Hebrews 10:25).
When Churches Aren't Healthy
Churches are not always healthy for their members. Sometimes church interactions are destructive and even abusive. Many of us have been hurt or wounded by members of a congregation.
Unhealthy churches deny problems. Healthy churches have the courage to look honestly at patterns and make changes.
When I was a teenager, I walked out on the Lord for a time. I am not proud of it, nor am I blaming anyone, but I do know why I did it. I focused too much on people who talked about grace but practiced judgment, criticism, and condemnation. Healthy church members are authentic and gracious. A judgmental church creates dissension. A pattern of blaming and finding fault is not healthy. Taking responsibility for being part of God's solution is.
A church fighting among itself too easily engages others in the conflict. The family of God too often acts like a dysfunctional family with unresolved issues. Gossip is always destructive! Healthy churches treat people respectfully and are sensitive about what they say and don't say. Talking negatively about others does not increase health. Praying for others does.
Unhealthy churches form coalitions in which some people side together against others. Healthy churches recognize that spiritual transformation is God's work. In his classic book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster notes, "When the [spiritual] disciplines degenerate into law, they are used to manipulate and control people. We take explicit commands and use them to imprison others. Pride takes over because we come to believe that we are the right kind of people. Fear takes over because the power of controlling others carries with it the anxiety of losing control, and the anxiety of being controlled by others. Once we have made a law, we have an "externalism" by which we can judge who is measuring up and who is not." With that the church moves toward legalism and church members feel responsible to correct those around them. In a healthy congregation, our responsibility is not to correct, but to love each other.
Healthy churches have a Spirit-created unity. Jesus prayed, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23). Paul articulates to the Ephesian church the essence of the church's unity: The church is to be one body having one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:4-6). The church is to only have one Lord, and it's not you, me, the pastor, or the largest giver. The only Lord of any church is Jesus Christ. God desires unity and reconciliation between His people. "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity" (Psalm 133:1). So a healthy church is also gracious and recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Abuse in the Church?
Carried to an extreme, a church that takes on God's responsibilities for changing people can become abusive. In its mild form, we call the manipulation of feelings a guilt trip—false guilt used to control people. God's Word says there is "no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).
We are to experience freedom in Christ. Extremely unhealthy churches focus upon power, control, authoritarian leadership, and conformity. Their unity comes from coercion, not from the Spirit. Healthy churches show a balance of freedom and control, spontaneity and inner discipline.
The healthy church includes accountability, even for leaders, as an expression of responsibility for each other. But such a church maintains respect for the individual's thoughts, perceptions, and choices. A healthy congregation does not suppress the members' thoughts or questions. Instead, a healthy church encourages members to explore the hard questions of their souls. We are each to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength.
Healthy churches encourage a balance of mutual interdependency rather than over-dependency.
They affirm individual identity, while lovingly confronting inappropriate behavior. Individuals are encouraged to follow Christ, more than any congregational leader. Members are encouraged to read God's Word for themselves, while being part of discipleship groups. People build each other up in the Lord instead of tearing each other down.
Healthy churches accept the humanness and spirituality of members. Healthy churches stay grounded in God's Word, allowing members to find their own experience and expression. Healthy churches accept the emotional aspect of experience, but do not worship emotionalism. Healthy churches allow their members to be real Christians and real humans.
Our Church is God's Church
So what does this mean? We must remind ourselves that it is His church and we have a responsibility to His church. We are to be "salt" and "light" to our local congregation as well as to our world.
For us to have a healthy influence on our churches, we must maintain a relationship with God so we offer His grace to those around us. Paul pleads with the Ephesian church to "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3). We are to "live in peace with all men and to be holy" (Hebrews 12:14). This does not mean we are to passively accept unhealthiness within the church. In his chapter on unity within the church, Paul encourages us to speak the truth in love to help us grow up into the Head, who is Christ (Ephesians 4:15). We must know the truth, and love our brothers and sisters.
Let us "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). He is the source of health and wholeness. And, if you have been hurt by your church, I pray that God will fill your life with His healing grace.
Norm Henry is a clinical psychologist in Nashville.
Holiness Today, Jan/Feb 2006
Please note: This article was originally published in 2006. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.
