Based on the 12 Characteristics of a Healthy Church
The following is a tool to help a church evaluate itself in regard to the Twelve Characteristics of a Healthy Church. Remember, no church is a perfect 5 in every area; there’s always room for improvement and progress. Areas of imperfection provide a strong bias for action and change; they give impetus for growth.
Note! This tool is not designed as an evaluation of the pastor; it’s an assessment of the health of the church as a whole. It will give a more accurate picture of the health of a church if several people, both clergy and lay members, participate in the assessment. The pastor(s), governing board, and chairpersons of various committees and ministries, and even the entire membership may fill out a copy of this form.
This assessment tool asks twelve main questions, each of which has a subset of several questions. You are asked to give a numerical value on the linear scale to each of the main questions. Putting a numerical value on the line by each of the subset questions will help you analyze more precisely areas of strengths and weakness. (It may be helpful to answer the subset questions first and then give an overall rating.) In answering the questions, use the following scale:
| 1. | = Never |
| 2. | = Rarely/almost never |
| 3. | = Sometimes/occasionally |
| 4. | = Often/most of the time |
| 5. | = Always |
Do we as a community highly value, enthusiastically support and consistently offer quality, inspiring worship and can we honestly call ourselves a praying people?
A. Worship
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Does our worship focus people’s attention on God and make them more aware of Him? |
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Is every element of the worship done with excellence? |
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Is there cohesiveness and flow to the worship experience? |
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Are the worship leaders gifted in leading people to focus on God? |
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Have we connected with God when we meet for worship in community? |
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Do we come to worship with a sense of anticipation? |
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Is our worship true to our understanding of Scripture? |
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Is our worship culturally relevant? |
B. Prayer
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Does the awareness that apart from Christ we can do nothing lead us to utter dependence upon God through prayer? |
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Do our leaders, both in personal practice and in leadership settings, lead by prayer? |
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Do we offer a variety of opportunities for corporate prayer? |
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Are we teaching believers to pray? |
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Do we encourage family worship and prayer and provide resources to support that? |
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Does our church pray regularly for the evangelization of our community, nation and world? |
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Do we affirm our members with a particular calling to prayer ministry and use them well? |
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Do we regularly unite to pray with the wider body of believers in our community to intercede with God for revival and spiritual harvest around the globe? |
2. EMPOWERED LEADERS
Is/are our pastor(s) godly, gifted, equipped and adequately resourced leader?
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Have we encouraged our pastor(s) to participate in an in-depth self-analysis process? |
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Have we given our pastor(s) opportunity to intentionally identify and assess their spiritual gifts? |
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Do we enable our pastor(s) to minister primarily in areas of giftedness? |
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Do we enable our pastor(s) to continue education? |
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Do we enable our pastor(s) to take time for personal retreat and renewal apart from vacation? |
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Do we have an adequate budget to allow our pastor(s) to pursue professional enrichment opportunities? |
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Do we hold our pastor(s) accountable for their spiritual well-being? |
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Do we guard the sermon-preparation time of our pastor(s)? |
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Do we have well-defined and widely accepted role expectations for our pastor(s)? |
3. PASSIONATE SPIRITUALITY
Are we caring, loving people who think and behave biblically in contrast to the surrounding culture, while genuinely loving people in the surrounding culture?
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Are characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit being experienced and observed by more and more people. |
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Do we have an intentional growth path for spiritual development? |
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Does our preaching, teaching and disciple-making translate into people who live a more godly life-style? |
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Is our church a place where people feel safe to be transparent and vulnerable? |
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Does our church reach out in tangible ways to needy people to express care and provide help? |
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Is our primary leadership requirement the spiritual maturity of our leaders? |
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Are our members being challenged to respond to God’s call to either short-tern or career ministry and mission? |
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Do people and families feel increasingly valued? |
4. GIFT ORIENTED MINISTRY
Is each person in our church equipped and mobilized to use his/her gifts, skills and resources to grow the church?
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Do we have a plan to enable each member of our church to know his/her spiritual gifts? |
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Do we have a plan to help each member exercise his/her spiritual gifts in ministry in the church? |
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Do we encourage members to exercise their spiritual gifts outside the church to the transformation of the community? |
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Do we provide teaching on a regular basis that conveys the expectation that each member will actively serve Jesus Christ through the church? |
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Do we have a plan to develop and use the leadership gifts of those within our congregation? |
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Are we broadening our leadership base so that more than a few people are doing most of the work? |
5. GODLY UNITY
What programs and processes do we have in place to eliminate prejudicial, judgmental acts and attitudes?
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Do we intentionally encourage the generations to affirm, value, and interact well in our church? |
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Do we have a positive method for addressing and resolving conflicts between people and groups within the church? |
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Does our church congregation reflect the demographic make-up of our community? |
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Do our governing boards and leadership teams reflect the demographic make-up (race, age, and gender) of our church? |
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Does our church have a cross-cultural sister relationship with another church? |
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Do we have a well-thought out philosophy and process of church discipline? |
6. INTENTIONAL EVANGELISM
Does the number of our conversion and baptisms indicate an intentional commitment to evangelize the lost?
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Do we encourage and provide prayer opportunities to intercede for the lost? |
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Do we encourage our members to build relationships with unchurched or secular people? |
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Does our church offer a variety of appropriate entry points/outreach events to attract unchurched or secular people? |
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Does our church provide regular training in evangelism? |
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Is our church growing through conversions? |
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Are we visitor-friendly and do we offer a warm welcome to guests? |
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Do we have an intentional plan for assimilating and enfolding new attendees into the life of the church? |
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Are we committed to evangelize our community? |
7. CHEERFUL GIVING
Do our financial reports show an annual increase in giving that permits greater ministries being offered to increasing numbers of people?
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Do we offer training relative to financial stewardship? |
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Do we offer training pertaining to personal financial management? |
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Is financial responsibility in the church seen as a part of total life management? |
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Is our church being financially challenged on a regular basis to support the mission and vision of the church? |
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Do we have the financial resources to respond to unforeseen/unexpected ministry opportunities? |
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Do we consistently meet our projected budget? |
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Are our financial records above reproach? |
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Is the church managing and spending its financial resources responsibly in a God-honoring way? |
8. CULTURAL RELEVANCE
Is our church involved in meeting people’s needs and better our community as a whole?
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Has our church adequately assessed our community to determine its needs? |
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Do we provide specific opportunities to address those community needs? |
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Are our people encouraged to bring salt and light to community programs and organizations (parent-teacher groups, civic organizations, ministries of compassion)? |
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Is our congregation known in the community for positive and relevant involvement? |
9. PLANNED REPRODUCTION
How many new churches have we started in the last five years?
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Have we parented church plants in the last five years? |
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Have we partnered with other churches to plant churches in the last five years? |
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Do we have a plan for our involvement in church planting? |
10. BIBLICAL BELIEFS
Do we know and conform to the BGC Affirmation of Faith?
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Do we teach the BGC Affirmation of Faith in our new members class? |
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Are our new members required to affirm the BGC Affirmation of Faith? |
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Is the content of the BGC Affirmation of Faith central to our teaching ministries? |
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Does our personal life-style and corporate practice reflect the GC Affirmation of Faith? |
11. MINISTRY PARTNERSHIP
Do we have a mutually beneficial connection to the BGC and are we networked with other BGC churches to accomplish common goals?
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Do we participate in district and BGC ministries and events? |
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Does our budget reflect a commitment to our district and the BGC? |
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Does our church financially support BGC missionaries? |
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Does our church financially support USA church planters? |
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Does our church financially support church enrichment ministries? |
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Does our church financially support Bethel University? |
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Do we have an intentional plan for informing our church concerning district and BGC matters? |
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Is our church being resourced by BGC entities (district, Bethel, national)? |
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Are our youth being made aware of the educational opportunities available through Bethel University and Hispanic Bible School? |
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Are our youth being challenged with ministry opportunities through the BGC-short-term and/or career? |
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Do we have representatives from district, Bethel and national address our congregation periodically? |
12. HIGH EXPECTATIONS
Do we regularly and intentionally set motivating, God-sized goals and then periodically review the extent to which we’re accomplishing them?
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Does our church have clearly defined and widely understood mission and vision statements? |
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Does our church enter into a regular strategic and ministry planning process? |
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Do we have specific goals related to the 12 characteristics of a healthy church? |
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Is there regular evaluation in achieving our goals? |
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Does all we do reflect dependence on the Holy Spirit because of the bigness and greatness of God? |
