“After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.”
        —Ephesians 5:29

“But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.”
        —1 Corinthians 3:10-15

What does a “healthy” church look like?  For church leaders and builders, it is the fundamental question of our time, deserving sober thinking and wide-open, undefensive discussion.  With most of us having spent the last 4-5 years identifying and extirpating unhealthy patterns and practices in our congregations, we now have a pretty good idea of what doesn’t edify the church and what doesn’t lead it to maturity.

While only the chairmen of all the other teams were appointed in October, the Delegates selected all of the members of this Service Team. They already met with an ad-hoc group of evangelists from large churches in San Antonio in November. Their two main quests, in conjunction with providing material for the Co-op website is to write articles to describe or define a healthy church from a biblical perspective in our current world, and, present analysis material of examples of healthy churches using biblical criteria. These articles will begin to appear with the release of the new website February 1, Lord willing.