What Does a Healthy Church Look Like?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Acts 2, Acts 2:42, Acts 2:38, Acts 2:40, 1 Corinthians 12, Matthew 20:25-28, 1 Peter 5:1-4, 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 7:12, Acts 2:47

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-does-a-healthy-church-look-like
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well to answer this question I would firstSign go in to Acts chapter 2.

in Acts 2 we have the birthday of the Christian church and at the end of the chapter we have an example or a paradigm of what a healthy church should be like so we find that 120 receive the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost initially and then after Peter preached the crowd responded 3 000 were added to the church that day and we we see in Acts 2 42 they continued steadfastly in the apostles Doctrine and fellowship breaking a bread and prayers so here's I see some earmarks of a healthy Apostolic Church first there should be the apostolic experience so what we see in Acts chapter 2 is people are filled with the Holy Ghost with the initial sign of speaking in tongues they were commanded to be to repent to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 2 38.

so first of all there must be a clear Apostolic message now that not only relates to the Plan of Salvation but of course you have the entire Bible in more specifically the New so a healthy church should Testament teach what the Bible teaches and specifically the doctrine that we find for the New Testament Church it should stand for that so how do we know what that is well that's a big subject but in a nutshell if you look in Acts 2 and you carefully analyze that whole chapter and you you analyze the Apostle Peter's message and notice that all of the other Apostles stood with him so this message is endorsed by all 12 Apostles at the same place the same time of course it's recorded by Luke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit like as the the whole Bible is but if you'll notice Peter preached that that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved well he's quoting from Joel in Joel the Lord was Yahweh Jehovah but then from that Peter preached about Jesus Christ and he applied that prophecy to Jesus if you call the name of Jesus she'll be you'll be saved so without a lengthy discussion of the godhead Peter is assuming and proclaiming that the one God of the Old Testament is revealed as Jesus Christ the lord of the Old Testament is the lord of the New Testament who is Jesus he also preached that Jesus was a true human anointed by God dear Miracles you should have believed on him so we find clear teaching of the deity and Humanity of Jesus Christ of one God who pours out his Spirit who came in flesh as Jesus Christ the son of God to be the savior of the world and then he preached if you carefully analyze his message that Jesus died he was buried he rose again to provide our Salvation people were convicted of their sins and cried out what shall we do in other words how to how can we be saved how can we accept your message how can we believe on Jesus how can we be forgiven of our sins of crucifying the Messiah that's when he gave Acts 2 38 and so you see the gospel or the good news is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus our response to the gospel in Acts 2 38 we die to sin and repentance we're buried with Jesus Christ and water baptism We rise to New Life through receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost as they did in Acts 2 with the initial sign of speaking in tongues it's also interesting in Acts 2 40 that Peter continued preaching with many other words he test defied and exhorted saying save yourselves or preserve or keep yourselves from this untoward or perverse or crooked generation so there is the essence of Holiness so notice in Acts chapter 2 we have the preaching of the one God Jesus Christ Lord savior Messiah Son of God actually both human and Divine God manifests the flesh the gospel of the death Beyond resurrection of Jesus that purchases our Salvation our response to the gospel through the new birth experience and then the continued life of Holiness so now all that is under my first point here that a truly Apostolic Church will have the apostolic Doctrine have the apostolic message so the early Believers continued steadfastly in that same message but you also notice they continue steadfastly in the apostles Doctrine and fellowship so that my second point is is a church that has Fellowship that has unity and not internally but also externally so I don't think you have to belong to a particular organization to be a healthy church but I do believe you must be connected to the larger body and that's what the upci attempts to provide you're connected locally in your area your state but also nationally and internationally I think that's a Biblical concept that we should strive for Unity fellowship and if you'll notice a practical application the breaking of bread which would include communion but also Fellowship meals prayer and so on so my second point is a healthy church will be United in Fellowship both internally and with other churches of like Faith there should there should be a feeling of interdependence not Independence there should be a desire to to uh work with the broader Church to be missions-minded to be not just focused on internally on that local church and what blesses it but how that church can in turn be a blessing to others and have a sense of accountability and responsibility to others so this second principle of unity and fellowship uh with the larger body of Believers I think is crucially important and if you continue reading you'll notice there were such that feel such a feeling of unity that they even were motivated to sell pieces of property in houses and give the proceeds to the apostles to help the poor and later we find in places like first and second Corinthians they would collect offerings for the poor they would also support the ministry they would also collect offerings for Missions such as to support the Apostle Paul on his mission strip so so this Unity was expressed in sacrificial giving so I'm not putting that as a separate point but as a manifestation of this this Cooperative effort so a church should be missions minded it should be other minded um my third so that's what you might call horizontal relationship how is that church you know how are the church is there good Fellowship is there love is is their accountability and not only within the church but with other churches and with the larger body and participating in missions do we see that that level of unity the third thing is vertical relationship because they continued in prayer and then later in the chapter it says they went to the temple which would be a large area Outdoors where they could all gather together and from house to house which would be uh in local meetings and which would later become local churches or local manifestations of the Church of the city and so they continued in worship praising God so this would be my third point is a vertical relationship so there should not only be that sense of unity and connection to other uh Believers and other churches in a healthy relationship but there should be an emphasis on prayer and worship there should be an emphasis on uh heartfelt intercessory prayer personal prayer corporate prayer a heartfelt spiritual worship a demonstrative sincere so we should see that vertical relationship number four I see in here that um maybe maybe let me renumber because I started with experience and then the doctrine or the message so that would be number two the number three I would say would be your horizontal relationship Unity number four would be your vertical relationship prayer and worship number five also in this same chapter that signs and wonders were done in their midst so a genuinely episodic church will have healing will have the gifts of the Spirit as mentioned First Corinthians chapter 12.

we'll we'll believe in prayer and answers to prayer will be will experience signs and wonders uh we'll pray for the sick on a regular basis so those are five characteristics that I deem to be essential but then and and and there's an assumption here that the leadership is healthy they had respect for the apostles and the apostles therefore were able to to pray for people and see many miracles done because because there was that healthy respect for leadership so I would also say it's very important for a healthy Church to have healthy leadership now that's a big subject and I've in other podcasts I've talked about what good leadership is like I've also talked about spiritual abuse but I would just make a few comments there healthy leadership will be accountable healthy leaders will be humble there's a genuine Spiritual Authority but it's exercised in love so healthy leadership will be uh servant leadership Matthew chapter 20 verse 25-28 another passage that's very good in this regard is First Peter 5 1-4 healthy leadership will be lead by example not as a dictator not manipulative not authoritarian with true Spiritual Authority but not an authoritarian approach understanding The Authority is not ours personally but it's based on the word of God so the leadership should lead and and draw their Authority for what they say from scripture and the power should not be um personal manipulation or psychological techniques but it should be based on the spirit of God and the underlying motive for everything the only acceptable motive according to First Corinthians 13 is love there should be also connected to that should be respect for people the golden rule of Matthew 7 12 do unto others as you'd have them do unto you so so under this category that I'm talking about of healthy leadership you look for servanthood you look for leadership uh servanthood leadership leadership by example leadership that respects people leadership is motivated by love leadership that draws its Authority on the word of God and it works in the power of the spirit that's a very brief summary on that subject I've written a book called spiritual leadership in the 21st century that will go into greater detail so when you put it all together I'll go back to Acts 2 the very end of the chapter verse 47 it says the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved so a healthy church will be a growing church so yes you should look for a church that's what we call Revival that's having a continual move of God a church that's Evangelistic that's reaching out for Souls that doesn't mean it has to be a large Church it doesn't have to mean that all the time there will necessarily be growing numerically there are many reasons why a good and healthy Church may not always grow all the time but there certainly should be an emphasis and a desire and a pathway to growth which should be both qualitative and quantitative that means qualitative growing in Grace growing in knowledge growing in discipleship growing in maturity and numerical growth yes we want to see new people coming to the church new people being baptized receiving the spirit and being discipled and assimilated so if there's no activity you know there are no visitors and no one receiving the Holy Spirit while there can be temporary reasons and causes not all churches are going to grow literally and you know absolutely sometimes there's a plateau sometimes there's a decline sometimes you go through even as an individual goes through a trial or a Wilderness that can happen in a local church so I don't think we can say Well it has to have a nice building it has to have a big crowd it has to be constantly growing it has to be fulfilling certain you know goals that's not what I'm talking about but the attitude of Desiring to grow spiritually and numerically designed to win souls and disciple Souls yes there should be a healthy plan and participation in both evangelism and discipleship that's the mission of the church and sometimes we look strictly at well how many new people are coming or are they breaking their records or how many receive the Holy Ghost but that should be balanced with our people being led to maturity are they being disciple are they being assimilated Incorporated to the church which goes back to the unity that I mentioned earlier so in summary I would draw my basic criteria from Acts chapter 2 of number one an Apostolic experience number two episodic Doctrine or message number three Unity connectedness interdependence Fellowship accountability number four uh relationship with God prayer worship number five healthy spiritual leadership qualified and accountable servanthood leadership leadership by example that love loves and respects people and then finally I would look for an attitude of growth both with evangelism and discipleship and no church is perfect so these are ideals churches may have strengths and weaknesses very in various areas but maybe you've heard the old saying if you ever find a perfect Church please don't join it because then by you coming there it will become less than perfect so leave it alone and let it enjoy its Perfection but all of us are in a growth process and we we certainly do need a healthy loving Church in which to grow