Margaret Marcuson speaks and writes on leadership and works with church leaders nationally as a consultant and coach. Earlier this month, she shared a list of nine indicators of a healthy congregation:
- Mature leaders, clergy and lay, who know who they are and what they are about in their lives and ministry.
- Leaders who can articulate their vision and direction.
- The ability to tolerate difference.
- Leaders who can take a stand with people (staff or church members) who are not functioning well.
- The ability to take the long view. (Most things of value in church take time to happen.)
- An appreciation for the past without being bound by it.
- A lightness of spirit – people who don’t take themselves too seriously.
- Resilience – the congregation can recover from setbacks.
- Genuine spiritual maturity, growing out of the prayer and worship practices of the leadership and congregation.
So What?
While there is no universal formula that when followed guarantees the creation of a healthy congregation, there are many helpful and healthy ways to assess the current health of a given congregation. Marcuson’s latest list is one such helpful tool.
- Grade your congregation using Marcuson’s list. Step 1: For each of the nine items assign a letter grade (e.g., B) based on your congregation at this moment in time. Step 2: Using the letter grades as a starting point, order the nine items from strongest to weakest placing the indicator you feel your congregation is doing best atop the list.
- Encourage a key leadership team/group/committee to engage in the task above. Pre-meeting: Each member completes the two step process suggested above. Meeting: As a group share your results then work together to create a single list in rank order. Next steps: Share the results with the appropriate groups.