Marks of a Healthy Church Essay

IntroductionIn the New Testament, the perform building building service building can be referred to as the topical anesthetic church or the universal church. The local anesthetic church is a place where assemblies of believers be together at a point location and time. The universal church refers to the carcass of Christ. Many churches believe that they atomic number 18 anicteric beca persona they have a certain add up of people on their membership roll. firm churches measure their spirituality tally to divinitys watchword.This paper seeks to convey that well-preserved churches ar measured in spiritual terms versus mathematical terms catch scriptural quite of cultural patterns of ministry atomic number 18 based on theological instead of sociological foundations focus on ministry non a marketing type and adopt scriptural not sacrilegious models of lead. This go away be make by examining Kenneth Gangels discussion on the different label that can be utilise t o aegir a nixous church in his member The Marks of a sanguine Church.Brief SummaryAccording to Kenneth Gangel, in his obligate The Marks of a levelheaded Church, he seeks to explain the characteristics of a healthy church using the measurements of the spiritual, biblical, theological, ministry model, and scriptural model of leadinghip. To accomplish this Gangel cautions spiritual drawing cards not to get caught up in bill church growth in numerical terms. They should accentuate the holiness and sovereignty of god through Bible study, worship, prayer, praise, and fellowship. In interest biblical instead of cultural patterns, churches do not feel compelled to stay up with the times or get dependant on religious fads and slogans. Churches should not impact alot of programs and believe that they are right fair(a) because they are successful.They would do well to prepare them and their success against the Word of divinity fudge. Gangel also cherished spiritual leaders to ensure that they are paying attention to the true vigor or teachings of biblical theology and not get caught up in sociological perceptions of what the church should be. They should seek Gods plans for the church and tune out immaterial influences.A healthy church seeks to stay spiritually effective by following the ministry model of the Great Commission according to Gods grace, formerity, and resources. Churches must(prenominal) neer use the marketing or worldly-minded model of seeking resources to accomplish their goals. eldritch leaders will have trials and be scrutinized but they should never take on a secular form of leadership in order to deal with these trials. They must pay attention to the essential functions of control and leading a healthy church. critical InteractionGangel has taken an in prescience approach to explaining what constitutes a healthy church. He seeks to make clear that spiritual leaders have to use a biblical approach to assessing church growth o r a healthy church. Some of the theological have it offs that I have found to be at stake in the phrase are the beliefs that church growth is an recording that the church is growing according to what God has mandated for the church.Church growth should always be evaluated to ensure that the growth is occurring for the right or biblical reasons. The other theological issue is making sure that the spiritual leader and the church are not conforming to the world and its way of doing things. The Bible is the roadway map that has been given to the spiritual leaders and the church to ensure that they do not go wrong or spiritually off course.Gangels opinion that the church should not get caught up on spiritual fads and slogans is backed by rump F. MacArthurs blameing that the abandonment of the scriptures as a regulatory principle has unfastened the church to some of the most execrable of abuses. These abuses include bringing in secular artist into worship services, a sideshow wit h a carnival theme, and wrestling shows. Gangel is prompted to write well-nigh this subject because he was noticed and read about churches hinging their spiritual health on numerical terms of growth instead of biblical terms.His goal is to enlighten and warn the church to make sure they are using biblical measurements in find the spiritual health of the church. The author has done an exceptional job in proving his thesis, that thither are biblical attach or measurements of a healthy church. Gangels rudimentary strengths in this article are the vanadium biblical marks that he has used to compare to the secular tenants that society likes to use. As he was explaining the five biblical marks of a healthy church, I concupiscence he would have addressed what happens to a church that follows the tenets of society.ConclusionThis paper has critiqued the article Marks of a Healthy Church. The authors discussion in this article clearly allows us know that church should use caution when i t comes to evaluating its growth. The marks that should be used to assess the health of the church are spiritual, biblical, theological, ministry model, and scriptural model of leadership. Everything that the church does should be checked by the Word of God.After reading this article, someone whitethorn make the claim that the church should do what it has to in order to generate the unbeliever. In my opinion, we as believers are not to let down our beliefs in what God has commanded us to do in order to reach an unbeliever. By all means, we can use Godly tools to witness to them where they are.Selected BibliographyEnns, Paul.The disconsolate vade mecum of Theology.Revised and Expanded. Chicago, IL Moody Publishers, 2008.Gangel, Kenneth O. 2001. Marks of a Healthy Church.Bibliotheca Sacra,no.158 vol.632(October December). http//galaxie.com/article/5724 (accessed October 15, 2012).MacArthur, John F., How Shall We and then Worship? in The Coming evangelistic Crisis,ed.David Wells ( Chicago Moody, 1996), 181 2 . Paul Enns, The Moody handbook of Theology, Revised and Expanded (Chicago, IL Moody Publishers, 2008), 257 3 . Gangel, Kenneth O. 2001. Marks of a Healthy Church. Bibliotheca Sacra 9, no.28 vol. 632 (October December). http//www.galaxie.com/article/5724 (accessed October 15, 2012). 4 . ibidem, 468. 5 . ibidem, 469. 6 . Gangel, 470. 7 . Ibid., 474 8 . Ibid. 9 . Enns, 359-360. 10 . MacArthur, John F., How Shall We because Worship? in The Coming evangelistic Crisis, ed. David Wells (Chicago Moody, 1996), 181 11 . Gangel, 467-468. 12 . Ibid.