Research
In introduction, there are several things to emphasize as we begin this study.
Christians have not always presented a pretty picture to the world. Too often they have failed to show the beauty of love, the beauty of Christ,the Holiness of God, and the world has turned away.
God's Word will never pass away, but looking back to the Old Testament and since the time of Christ, with tears we must say that because of lack of fortitude and faithfulness on the part of God's people…
The question before us is what the Christian life, true spirituality, really is,and how it may be lived in a twentieth-century setting.
A Healthy church needs to develop an immune system to resist disease, else the church will get sick and perhaps even die. We do not mean the diseases of viruses, such as whooping cough, but ones that are even more destructive to our soul and future in eternity!
It is aligning our personal desires, our plans, our worship, and our hope with God and His principles. It is an attitude more than an act, a pursuit to be offered to God to give Him glory through our pious, fervent...
The slope upon which we slip into a Church of Perfidy is the hill of compromise, where we weaken our beliefs and doctrines, and fail to love. This can easily happen if we fail to apply Christ and His guidelines to our lives.
A healthy church is one that is filled with His presence, is motivated to serve Him, and has love for "one another." It is about the centrality and supremacy of Christ.
We compared over 1,103 churches for 15 years to what constitutes a healthy church from our other research. The churches surveyed and tracked include reports from 23 denominations. Said earlier research pointed to 44 significant growth factors. We then complied and compared growth and failure rates:
After over 25 years of researching pastoral trends and many of us being a pastor, we have found (this data is old, stay tuned for our new research coming Summer 2016) that pastors are in a dangerous but needed occupation!
