Courier Conversations
This Podcast of Courier Conversations will be a conversation of topics with a variety of guests that concern, inspire and inform Christians about current events Worldwide. We hope you'll find our stories informing and encouraging in your daily walk with Christ.
Courier Conversations
Small Doesn’t Equal Unhealthy: Rethinking Church Size
Are big churches necessarily healthy? In our latest episode, we explore the complex relationship between church size and spiritual vitality, challenging the widely-held belief that larger congregations automatically reflect greater health. Join hosts Jeff Robinson and Travis Kearns as they engage in thought-provoking discussions about the true markers of a healthy church.
We delve deep into the critical elements of church health, emphasizing the importance of a robust foundation in Scripture. With references to influential thinkers like Mark Dever, we explore how expository preaching and active engagement in the Great Commission play vital roles in nurturing a spiritually vibrant community. Moreover, we highlight real-world examples showcasing diverse expressions of church health that transcend mere attendance figures.
Listeners are invited to consider pressing questions: What does a healthy church look like, and how can we measure ministry success beyond numbers? Through personal anecdotes and practical advice, we aim to equip church leaders and members with tools to cultivate environments that prioritize genuine community and spiritual growth.
This episode is filled with valuable insights for anyone invested in church health, from leaders and pastors to dedicated church members. Take part in this enlightening journey and reflect on your own church community's vibrancy. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help us spread the word!
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Welcome to the latest episode of Courier Conversations. My name is Jeff Robinson, I am President and Editor-in-Chief here at the Baptist Courier, and with me, as always, is my co-host, travis Kearns, who is the Mission Strategist for the Three Rivers Association. And so today we're talking about a topic that, travis, is right in your sweet spot this is your whole life, I think and that is what is a healthy church. This is the. I hold in my hands the March edition of the Baptist Courier, and it is new and slick. We've got a lot of good things to like about this Baptist Courier. This edition. It's dealing with what is a healthy church, with a number of articles unpacking that. We have more pages this time, more content and a new look, and I hope you'll like it. But today we're going to talk about what is a healthy church, and so I'm going to start with this. I'm going to throw you a fastball. It's almost baseball season, right, and I'm happy as I can be.
Travis Kearns:But it is NASCAR season and you're happy as you can be.
Jeff Robinson:That's right. You yesterday dinged me about that blue oval being in the top 10 of the first 11 positions on the polls. I got that All right. So the Yankees aren't going to the World Series this year, the Reds aren't either, or the Braves. So here's the fastball. Right down the middle Is a big church, a healthy church. And why do we often think a big church equals a healthy church?
Travis Kearns:So the answer to the first question, the first part of the question, is not necessarily the answer is not yes or no, it's. Maybe Joel Osteen's quote-unquote church in Houston is a big quote-unquote church. I keep saying that because I don't think it's a church. But just because it's big doesn't mean it's healthy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a little over 17 million members around the world. They have church in the name but that doesn't make it one, a church or healthy. So size does not necessarily make a group of people gathered together. Let's say church, just for the sake of the discussion, is a group of people gathered around Scripture for the name and sake of Christ. Just because it's big doesn't necessarily make it healthy, because you could have small and be healthy. So yeah, size does not necessarily make health or unhealth, it just means there's more people there.
Jeff Robinson:Yeah, Remind me of the second part of the question. I've already forgotten. The second part of the question was why do we often think that largesse equals is tantamount to health?
Travis Kearns:Yeah, I think that's only true necessarily in the West. I don't think that's true. I don't mean Western US, I mean just in the West generally, western Europe and North America. I think you'd look at places in the East or even in North Africa where you'd find a church of 10 or 12 or 15, maybe even one family of 6, 8, or 10, and it can be a very healthy expression of the kingdom of Christ, a local, healthy expression of the kingdom of Christ. So I think just Western Europe and probably more specifically the United States see big in Christianity as better, and that's I think it's just a cultural thing, it's absolutely not a biblical thing.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and you're definitely right, you have Joel Osteen, I think, the largest Protestant church in America now, or one of the top three at least, and of course you and I lived in Louisville for a long time and Southeast Christian there is one of the top four, I think it's fourth largest in the country. Of course, those are very different churches they're not someone's charismatic or I'm not sure what it is and Houston and in Louisville they've got some Saddleback in Southern California Right.
Jeff Robinson:They've got some really good things going at Southeast Christian in. We were around that for a long time.
Travis Kearns:We could even get more personal and a lot closer to home and say Elevation and Charlotte.
Jeff Robinson:Oh yeah, that's right, that is just up the road here, right? So they've got lots and lots of people. And then you have John MacArthur at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, california, and I think John's got what? 5,000 or 10,000, maybe 10,000? I mean large church.
Jeff Robinson:Those are very different things. One we'd say he's very healthy, and the others, you know, because of what they preach and teach and believe, we would maybe take issue with health. So your business you are what we used to call a DOM. For you out there who are used to the old Southern Baptist nomenclature, and I still call you a DOM because I grew up with that too. I still call you a DOM because I grew up with that too. But isn't your business to help promote and to assist churches toward health?
Travis Kearns:Yeah, so in association life, our philosophy at Three Rivers is to do two things.
Travis Kearns:Number one, to encourage pastors, because church staff ministry, jeff, as you know from being in church staff roles is probably the most difficult thing to do on the planet, because the people who love you never say a word.
Travis Kearns:Those who hate you tell you every day. So we want to encourage pastors through meeting with them, through having a shoulder to cry on, somebody who understands what they're going through, and we do so in different ways. The second thing is to equip local churches to fulfill their part of the Great Commission in order to push back the darkness in their community wherever they may feel called to reach out with the gospel of Christ. So, yeah, our role is at least half of it is to equip churches not to do the work. So we don't do evangelism, we don't do mission trips, we don't replant, we don't plant, we don't revitalize, we don't do evangelism, we don't do mission trips, we don't replant, we don't plant, we don't revitalize, we don't do mission trips, we train in doing all those things so that the church because that's God's plan for the world in the New Testament is—or let me back up Our role is simply to push the church to make sure and equip the church to make sure it's doing the role that it's been called and tasked with doing. Yep.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and here at the Baptist Courier our mission is to encourage healthy Christians, mature Christians, healthy churches and healthy pastors. That's a big part of producing resources that aim at that. That's what our books, our magazine, this podcast, all of our publishing, everything we do, is aimed at those things. So in a sense that's what we're very interested in. And just background, travis and I both have had the privilege of serving as pastor for quite a few years and so we know we've had to think through this question practically. This is not just a thing where we're armchair quarterbacking this. Practically, this is not just a thing where we're armchair quarterbacking this.
Jeff Robinson:So in 2004, our friend Mark Devere wrote a book, a very well-known book in our circles, at least in many circles in evangelicalism called Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and of course that's been gone through I think four editions now. That had its genesis, its beginning, in a letter Mark wrote to the congregation he would eventually become pastor I'm in Washington DC about defining a healthy church and I think sometime maybe 92, 93, something like that, I don't remember exactly. I mean it laid out the nine marks of healthy church and so mark number one and we go into this, not the nine marks, but we go into the different marks of this in the magazine this month, but it's expositional preaching. Do you think that's the right place to start? I think that.
Travis Kearns:I said this a lot when we were in Louisville. I said it a lot in Salt Lake. I said a lot in Texas. I say it a lot now. I think that Christianity is easy and we make it hard. I think church is easy and we make it hard.
Travis Kearns:I don't think that Dever is necessarily right or wrong in starting with expository preaching. I think the starting place that we should find should come directly from Scripture. Now, I'm not at all arguing that expository preaching is not found in Scripture, because I think that is the scriptural method of preaching. You see it from Jesus, from the apostles, you see it in the Old Testament, across the New Testament. I think we should start with belief in Scripture.
Travis Kearns:So my first way to look at a church, to figure out or try to determine if it's healthy or not, is do they believe 2 Timothy, 3, 16 and 17, that all Scripture is inspired by God, profitable for doctrine, proof, correction, training, righteousness, so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped or adequate for every good work? If they don't believe Scripture is what it claims to be, expository preaching is going to fall by the wayside. First and foremost, testability, belief in Scripture. That must be the bedrock. Now, I don't think Debra would disagree with that and again, I'm not saying that expository preaching is wrong in any sense. But I think that we have to start with Scripture first and foremost.
Jeff Robinson:Well, and I don't know if Debra I can't remember, I mean, I commend this book, I love it, I know you like it too, I mean.
Jeff Robinson:I commend love Mark's ministry, appreciate it. I have many friends In fact. Jonathan Lehman, a longtime friend of ours, contributed a really fine article in Church Discipline to this edition of the Baptist Courier. I've written, had many projects with Jonathan and love Jonathan. He's a dear brother and writer, and all those guys. But expositional preaching I don't know if he intends these to be in order. He has preaching first, biblical theology second, meaning our theology must arrive from the Bible, not from our minds or something like that.
Jeff Robinson:A biblical understanding of the good news, that's the gospel, that we don't have the gospel as something outside the gospel. It's the facts of the gospel, that's the good news. Biblical understanding of conversion, meaning that God, what Jonah said, salvation, belongs to the Lord. I think that's what he means by that, not that we do something in that to help save ourselves. Fifth, the biblical understanding of evangelism. We both agree with that. We want to be missions-minded. Of course, we're not a book club. Biblical understanding of membership which boy, we could talk a long time. I'm sure we'll do a podcast on that sometime in the future, because that's kind of controversial now.
Travis Kearns:Yeah, even for some crazy reason.
Jeff Robinson:Yeah, we're Democrats, little d Democrats.
Jeff Robinson:We like to vote, we like to have our rights, biblical church discipline, which we write about in the magazine this time. Eighth, promotion of church discipleship and growth, and we think that's a good thing and not a biblical understanding of leadership, which is that there are two offices in the New Testament elders and a plurality of elders and deacons in which the church I'm a member of has that and I think that's right and you see God's wisdom in that. So those are terrific, I think. But I think you're right. I think the beginning point for a healthy church is a strong, clear confession of faith that has as its first article an article on Scripture, where we stand on Scripture, and I think everything flows out of that.
Jeff Robinson:You and I at Southern Seminary were taught confessional Christianity. Southern Seminary was built on a James Pettigrew voice, a good South Carolina Greenville, south Carolina native. The seminary, of course, was founded here in 1859. Good South Carolina Greenville, south Carolina native. The seminary, of course, was founded here in 1859. But he made this a confessional institution. I mean, he'd been at Princeton, confessional man himself, and so that was the first priority there to write a confession of faith and did the abstract of principles. I think that's true for a church having here's what we believe and what we're going to teach from. Here's the framework, and our preaching and teaching flows out of that. What do you think about that?
Travis Kearns:Yeah, I absolutely believe that, as I mentioned earlier, scripture has to be the foundation, absolutely has to be. I tend to I don't know if this is just my practical nature or pragmatically based brain, or whatever it may be I tend to want to be like Joe Friday just the facts man Right. So I think if we look at Scripture first as the foundation, the second thing we want to look at is what is it that Scripture puts the most emphasis on? In the New Testament, the predominance of material comes down to the proclamation of the kingdom of Christ, proclamation of the gospel. So you see it in Matthew 28,. And you see, specifically, I would argue, matthew 28, two things, you see go, so that's the proclamation of the gospel.
Travis Kearns:People outside the church, so sharing the gospel, both with people like you, that's evangelism. And then the subset missions, doing so across a cultural or across a linguistic barrier. So evangelism is the go. And then make disciples, that's the discipling effort. So when I look at a church to see health, are you basing everything you're doing on scripture, yes or no? If you are, are you one sharing the gospel? Are you doing evangelism? Number two are you discipling believers? Are you making new disciples?
Travis Kearns:Now, I think that's if I'm writing a book. I'm not going to look at nine marks, I'm not going to look at five purposes. I'm going to look at two things with the foundation of Scripture. Are you, as I mentioned, are you doing evangelism? Are you doing discipleship? If you're doing those two things, everything else will by necessity. If you're basing those things on Scripture, everything else will fall into place Because we're evangelizing based on the New Testament, we're discipling based on the New Testament. If we're discipling based on the New Testament, then expository, preaching, proper understanding of leadership, proper understanding of the gospel of church, discipline, on and on, it goes down. That list of those marks that Dever lists out will be not only taught but will come into the regular hearing of everybody at the church. We're founded in Scripture and we're doing biblical evangelism, biblical discipleship. Everything else will fall into place.
Jeff Robinson:Yeah, I think that my good friend, late friend, harry Reeder, one of my ministry mentors and heroes, presbyterian pastor, longtime pastor in North Carolina of Christ's Covenant, where Kevin DeYoung is now, but also the last couple of decades in Birmingham at Briarwood PCA Church Harry was amazing in his communication ability and, harry, I used to tease him that he pastored the largest Baptist church in Birmingham because he had a lot of Southern Baptists and he preached like he was more like Adrian Rogers than he was, say, martin Lloyd-Jones just in his delivery, but he was amazing at alliteration and things like that.
Jeff Robinson:But he said the priority of Scripture, what you said, and that leads to three things In reach, so I put in reach is what we do said and that leads to three things Inreach, so I put it, inreach is what we do here, discipleship. Upreach, which is what we do together as we worship a God. And then outreach, which, of course, what we do out there to all the glory of God. And I think that was a pretty good summary. I think I stole that from one of my churches and some material we taught on one time and you're right, that's very simple. And I think that's right because it is very simple. We do try to make it. We tend to make things. It's like professors they can take something simple and make it very difficult.
Travis Kearns:Right, right, yeah, very complex. It is interesting In Acts 2.42, they were content to devote themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. So they're being sharing, because that's what the apostles taught to do. They're fellowshipping together, they're breaking bread you can take that as communion or as eating together or as both and they're praying. So even in the early church, as early as Acts 2.42, which is about as early as you can go in the life of the early church, they're doing this very thing. They're seeing the great commission fulfilled in this brand new church that Peter has just proclaimed the word. Thousands have come to faith and now there is this massive influx of people with a very small leadership group. And what do the leaders choose to do? They choose to focus on Scripture, the Scripture they had at the time. They're choosing to focus on the gospel message of Christ.
Jeff Robinson:And I think Mark's nine marks are a summary of that very thing and I think, an important. I mean I know you said it. Donald Thomas, my pastor at Abner Creek Baptist Church and your association, has a really fine article in here on expository preaching, how he encountered it the first time and how it really reaches everything. If you preach verse by verse, book by book, the way the Spirit inspired it, you'll eventually get to. You'll have hard text. You'll deal with things you don't want to deal with you might not necessarily otherwise deal with. So that's the beauty of expository preaching. When Paul said in the book of Acts, I have not, he said I have not exactly, how do you put it? I've declared to you the full counsel of God.
Travis Kearns:Right.
Jeff Robinson:I'm not held back from declaring the full counsel of God, and I think you do that. And I think another important thing we don't talk about as Baptists anymore is the regulator principle, and of course you know I'm a major proponent of that. I've written quite a bit about that. It is a Baptist doctrine, not just a Presbyterian doctrine, and that's simply that Scripture regulates worship. Scripture regulates everything we do in a worship service, in our in-reach, our up-reach and our outreach. And if we stick to those things, those elements taught by precept, example and Scripture, then we're going to have a long and faithful ministry.
Travis Kearns:I think, as a church. I think it's interesting. We fought the battle for the Bible in Southern Baptist life in the late 1970s, throughout the early 19 and mid-1980s, and a great deal of that battle was fought over sufficiency. Is the Bible sufficient for all areas of not just faith but also of practice? And not just practice inside the faith, but practice inside the church rather, but outside the church as well? So is the Bible sufficient for plumbing? Yes, it's not a plumber's manual, but it provides a moral compass, a worldview for plumbers. It's not an airplane pilot's manual on how to fly an airplane, but it gives the moral worldview standing for a pilot to fly an airplane and helps us understand how the world works so airplanes can be created and flown. So when it comes to issues of the church, like you just mentioned with the regulative principle, the question is not do you support the regulative principle? The question is is Scripture sufficient? And there's only two answers yes or no. If Scripture is sufficient, then it's sufficient for everything.
Travis Kearns:Is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17,. Is that text? Are those two verses accurate or not? If they are accurate, then in verse 17, when Paul says thoroughly equipped or adequate for every good work, then that means it's adequate, for every Scripture gives us the ability to perform every good work. It's sufficient or it's not. That's all there is to it. So Scripture has to be the foundation. Or if it's Scripture plus something else take Roman Catholicism as an example scripture, church history and papal authority then scripture is not sufficient. It's also not authoritative, inerrant or infallible, because you need other things to help you in order to get to what the church needs to be doing. So for Protestants, especially evangelical Protestants, this is simple it's scripture or nothing.
Jeff Robinson:That's right. And if you have that, no matter whether you have 20 people, 12 people, 2,000 people, that really doesn't matter. A big sound system, no sound system. If your preacher is just loud and he's your sound system, which I kind of grew up with over in North Georgia, then none of that really matters, does it? I mean it really. Faithfulness, I think, is what we're after here, as far as a healthy church is a faithful man of God. So, okay, I'm a church planter and I want to come into the. In about 30 seconds, cheryl, I'll let you answer this question. Yep, I want to come into the Three Word Association. You take me on and I can say Travis, where do I start? How do I build a healthy church? I'm a healthy church, I'm a healthy church planner.
Travis Kearns:I know.
Jeff Robinson:Matt Weirman answers that question in here does a fine job of a healthy church planner. But I'm a healthy church planner. You know me and you know that. Let's say when do I start.
Travis Kearns:Start with 2 Timothy, 3, 16 and 17,. Focus on the Great Commission. That's it. Do evangelism, do biblical evangelism, do biblical discipleship. That's all you got to worry about. You might draw 10 people. You might draw 10 people. You might draw 10,000 people. You might draw 10 million people. It's not our job to convict and convert. It's our job to share, to evangelize and disciple. The Holy Spirit's role is conviction and conversion. So we proclaim the gospel message from the text, we disciple from the text. The Spirit moves or the Spirit doesn't, as the Spirit so wills, and we just do our role, which is proclamation.
Jeff Robinson:Well, of course, the Reformers had the marks of a true church, and I think it was Calvin that said there's basically three it's where the gospel is faithfully the kerygma, the gospel is faithfully preached, where we call it the ordinances, they call it, the sacraments are faithfully celebrated. And I think he would add church discipline to that. Which brings me to a topic we do not have time for in this issue or in this edition of Conversations, is church discipline. I want us to do a whole discussion of that and maybe have some money on here in the near future, but I do think that's important and we deal with that in the Baptist career. I think that is a very important part of a healthy church that we have largely lost in Southern Baptist life.
Jeff Robinson:If you want a good book on that, read Greg Wills, a mutual friend of ours at Southern Seminary. Read his Democratic Religion, which shows how Southern Baptists faithfully carried out church discipline until just about a little over 100 years ago and how the point at which they departed from that doesn't really jump to that Right. Well, that's all the time we got. There's so much more we could say about this and we will talk about this more in the future, for sure, Certainly discipline and other things. So we appreciate you listening, Be sure to like us, Be sure to give us a five-star review, Listen to us on all the platforms some of them I'm too old to even know. We're on all those and don't miss our website. We have a new website that we're populating with stuff every day good content, solid biblical content and news from around South Carolina, the evangelical world, wwwbaptistcouriercom, and so be sure and go over there and keep up with what's going on and hopefully, be edified every single day. And so thanks for listening and we look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 3:We're glad you joined us for Courier Conversations, where we are informing and inspiring South Carolina Baptists and beyond. For more information about these topics and more, subscribe to our e-edition or go to our website at baptistcouriercom. The Courier is located in Greenville, south Carolina. As a multimedia ministry partner of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To comment about today's podcast, email us at conversations at baptistcouriercom. This podcast, produced by Bob Slone Audio Productions,
