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Marks of a Healthy Church - A Biblical Understanding of the Good News by Pastor Kevin Feder

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I am beginning to ask my kids about how they see the gospel presented in the various sermons and lessons they sit under. My 16 year old daughter goes to a Wednesday morning outreach ministry led by a faithful servant in the community. This man’s heart is to see the youth in the community know Christ and shepherded by Christ. God has done an amazing work through him and some 300 kids show up to eat breakfast and hear the gospel presented. My own daughter has convinced four of her unchurched and unbelieving friends to participate. I ask her how it went and ask for the ways the gospel was presented. My desire is for her to be good at spotting it so she can reiterate it to her friends. 

Truth be told, I am also training her to be discerning. It isn’t infrequent that large youth ministries degenerate into moralisms cloaked in some biblical themes. Thus, there is a real need to discern between the message of Jesus crucified, buried and risen to overcome sins and the message of try harder, do better, be nicer and think more positively. Both can sound an awful lot alike but they are very far away from the truth. Since the gospel is at the heart of Christianity the gospel should be at the center of healthy churches. 


When the gospel is at the center of healthy churches in healthy ways it manifests itself in a few ways. Let me present some of them. 


First, the church that is marked by a biblical understanding of the good news is noticed when the good news permeates through the entirety of the church. This means the gospel informs and shapes every sermon, prayer, initiative, even the conversations after the worship service in the lobby. In other words, the church should be dripping wet with the gospel of Jesus.


Second, the church should be marked by an increasing and deepening desire for a more understanding of the gospel. Mark Dever suggests this is so because “the hope of the gospel is the hope of knowing the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4-6). It’s the hope of seeing him clearly and knowing him fully, even as we are fully known (1 Cor. 13:8). It’s the hope of becoming like him as we see him as he is (1 John 3:2).


Third, the church is able and willing to distinguish between the gospel itself and the benefits of the gospel. Peace, joy, fulfillment, love are benefits of the gospel but the gospel itself is the news that God is love. It is the news that Jesus died on the cross and made a way for sinners to have fellowship with God. 


Fourth, the church is marked by an increasing desire to share the gospel with the world. George Truett, a pastor in Dallas Texas suggested that the “supreme indictment that you can bring against a church is that such a church lacks in passion and compassion for human souls.” In other words, the love for the gospel of Jesus can be measured in the congregations desire for evangelism. 


May God help us to love and cherish the good news above all things,

Pastor Kevin

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