The Order and Purpose of Healthy Church

Preaching the gospel, discipling believers, and worshipping together.

By Takalani Musekwa, Regional Director, South Africa

One of the most striking features of creation that reveals one of God’s attributes is order. Everything in creation is ordered. In fact, Paul tells us that “God is not a God of disorder.” (1 Corinthians 14:33 NLT). We see this orderliness in the creation narrative itself and in the Old Testament patterns of worship. God gave detailed instructions about how worship should be ordered, that is, when it should be conducted, where it should be conducted, and by whom it should be conducted.

A casual reading of the Gospel accounts may leave one with an erroneous impression that Jesus was haphazard in his ministry. Nothing could be further from the truth. A closer look at Jesus’ ministry reveals order. There are three things that dominated Jesus’ daily ministry activities: preaching the good news to the crowds accompanied by healings, teaching his close disciples and friends during meals and dinner parties, and worshiping at local synagogues or at the temple in Jerusalem. All three were covered in prayer with his Father.

It is this shape of Jesus’ ministry that informs our practices of Healthy Church. We believe a healthy church focuses on the same things that Jesus focused on — preaching the gospel, discipling believers, and worshipping together. This is what we refer to as the Love (sharing the gospel), Faith (discipleship and fellowship), and Hope (worship) ministry Avenues. A healthy church is therefore a church that is living and sharing the gospel through the ministry Avenues of Faith, Hope and Love. Let’s look at what these Avenues look like in the church.

Love Avenue

The number one preoccupation of the church should be about worshipping God and following his commission to reach the world with and through the love of God. This is the key mission that Jesus gave the church. “…As the Father has sent me, I am sending you,” Jesus said. (John 20:21 NIV) This instruction is repeated in various ways by all the Gospel writers (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; Acts. 1:8). Our monthly, quarterly, and annual ministry action plans (MAPs) must include how, where, when and who the church is going to reach with the good news about the love of God revealed to the world in the person of Jesus.

Faith Avenue

We live in a post-Christian world in which biblical literacy is declining, and Christianity itself is becoming a fringe religion. The negative attitude towards Christianity, which was last seen in the Roman Empire times, is growing. Our society no longer has a biblical or Christian worldview. A key ministry of the church is therefore to teach believers the scriptures so that they can maintain a godly worldview in a society that is returning to paganism each day. Discipleship programs and fellowship opportunities must be part of our ministry plans where “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). This is the focus of the Faith Avenue. Jesus’ commission was not just about going into the world to preach the good news; it was also about teaching “…these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.” (Matthew 28:20 NLT). Luke tells us that this was a practice of the early church as well. The first Christians “…devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals…” (Act. 2:42 NLT)

Hope Avenue

Just as it was Jesus’ custom to visit the synagogues every week or go to the temple in Jerusalem for public worship, we believe that gathering together for public or corporate worship is a healthy church practice. These gatherings are characterised by prayers, scripture readings spanning the whole Bible, proclamation of the word, sharing of the communion, and singing. The synagogue readings of Scripture were orderly. Each week there were designated texts from the scrolls that were read. On one such occasion, Jesus read the scheduled text about himself (Luke 4:16-17). The scheduled texts were in line with the annual Jewish worship. Today, in GCI we follow the Revised Common Lectionary texts which are ordered around the key themes of Jesus’ ministry from his birth, his ministering to the world, his death and resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the continuing work of Jesus in the world through the church. It is in these weekly gatherings for worship that order is paramount. This requires intentional preparation of every aspect of the program to create order. It cannot be approached in a lackadaisical manner.

The three ministry Avenues of Faith, Hope and Love must be seen through the lens of our triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In other words, Love Avenue objectives can be achieved through the Hope or Faith Avenues where seekers and unchurched people may attend our fellowship groups or church services. Similarly, worship elements of prayer, scripture reading, and singing from the Hope Avenue can be part of a Love Avenue or Faith Avenue event. By focusing on the three ministry Avenues, we are led to continue to focus on the unified movement of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our Hope Avenue has as its primary focus worship of the Father with Jesus as our chief worship leader (Heb. 2:12). Our Love Avenue has as its primary focus following Jesus Christ, who is our chief apostle, leading his church into the mission field. And the Faith Avenue has as its primary focus listening to the Holy Spirit, who teaches the church all things as Jesus promised (Jn. 14:26).

Healthy church practices are therefore trinitarian by nature. They help us participate in the ministry of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as we participate in the Hope, Faith, and Love Avenues.