I was recently talking to a pastor whose church was leaking people. As soon as a family joined the church, another family vanished. As we were trying to discover the cause of the leak, I made up the following three points on the spot. I told my friend that as a leader, it is his responsibility to create and maintain a healthy environment for growth. Here’s the environment leaders must work for, pray for, and lead toward.
1. A sense of God’s PRESENCE must be experienced together. Spiritual leaders must value God’s presence as Moses did. “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). As leaders, we don’t create God’s presence, but we can plan and lead meetings that enable people to encounter God in a meaningful way. We can also plan and lead meetings in ways that obstruct meaningful encounters with God. Components of corporate worship that contribute to experiencing God’s presence include, but are not limited to the following: transformational preaching (vs. information transfer), empowered ministry time (vs. pastor doing all ministry), participatory worship (vs. concert-style performance). If people do not experience God’s presence at our church, they will find another church.
2. A sense of MISSION must be accomplished together. People need to feel like their church is making the world a better place. Many churches are doing great things in regard to mission, but if their mission accomplishments are secrets, then the people will look elsewhere for their sense of mission. Healthy churches do local mission to the underprivileged and global mission to the unreached, they involve as many people as possible, then they over-communicate so everyone can celebrate mission together.
3. A sense of COMMUNITY must be built together. All people need community. Some find it in church, many do not. Church community is best experienced through small group discipleship, corporate worship, and missional service. I recently blogged about the idea of mission-creating community.
All three components of a healthy church environment are essential. If two are strong and the other is weak, we will leak people in the weak area. How is your church or campus ministry doing in these three aspects of healthy environment? Where are you strong and where do you need an upgrade?
