100 Days to a Healthier ChurchSample

Day 12 Today’s Big Idea: Recommit to the mission. Mission statements are overrated. Most of them remind us of what we plan to do—or want to do. But if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us—including most churches—don’t know what we’re going to do until we’ve already done it. For instance, most great writers don’t know what they’re going to write until they’ve written it. Most great lives are lived in the same way. And that’s how most great churches happen. We write it, live it, or do it first, then we look back and give it a title—then act like we knew what we were doing all along. This is not to say that planning doesn’t matter. After all, this entire book is based on the value of planning. But the truth is, mission statements don’t make great churches. Doing the mission makes great churches. The mission is already in place. It’s Christ’s, not ours. Like a general with troops, or a boss with employees, Christ has assigned tasks so the mission can be accomplished. Very few foot soldiers have anywhere close to a full understanding of what the overall aim of the mission is—they just know what they’re supposed to do. Churches do not become healthy because the pastor comes in with an awesome plan. Churches get healthy when we get in line with God’s plan. Key Verse: “You have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first” (Revelation 2:4–5). Thoughts to Consider: It can be hard to consider a passage from Revelation without getting caught up in endless arguments about eschatology (the study of the end times). But what if we just looked at this passage for what it meant then and there, to the original readers in the church of Ephesus? Since the apostle Paul spent more time there than with any other church, we know as much or more about the Ephesians as any other New Testament congregation. In addition to the book of Acts and the letter to the Ephesians, it gets a significant mention here, as one of the seven churches John sent his letter to. Yet, as strong as the foundation of the Ephesian church was, within less than a generation they were already forgetting what they were built on. They’d left their first love. If this can happen so quickly to the church in Ephesus, it can happen to us. We, like them, can easily forget what should be motivating us and become consumed by our own agendas. Because of this, we must constantly remind ourselves of the essential truths of the church, including asking some important questions as we pursue church health: “What are my motives for wanting a healthier church?” “Is it just one step toward getting bigger?” “Is my pride a factor in this?” “Am I competing with another pastor, another church, or my own expectations? “Could I be okay with a healthier church, even if it didn’t result in numerical increase for our congregation?” “Is this about my ego or God’s glory?” No one but Jesus has completely pure motives. But we should at least acknowledge as many unhealthy motivations as we can, then do our best to reduce them.