{"id":2692,"date":"2012-01-09T10:22:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T16:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2012-01-09T10:22:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T16:22:38","slug":"current-trends-in-healthy-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/current-trends-in-healthy-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Trends in Healthy Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thom Rainer<\/a> is CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources<\/a> and a reliable commentator on trends within evangelicalism.<\/p>\n

Last week, Thom published a two-part article, “Trends in Healthy Churches in 2012” (Part 1<\/a>, Part 2<\/a>). Here, Rainer is not setting out what he thinks should<\/em> be trends in healthy churches, or trends he looks for in order to identify<\/em> a healthy church. This list is his informed opinion based, in part, on research conducted within the United States among churches that are firmly committed to the gospel.<\/p>\n

Here are Rainer’s 12 “Trends in Healthy Chuches<\/a>“:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The churches have a high view of Scripture.<\/li>\n
  2. A large number of church members read the Bible daily.<\/li>\n
  3. The churches have a priority and focus on the nations.<\/li>\n
  4. The churches have a missional community presence.<\/li>\n
  5. The congregations have membership that matters.<\/li>\n
  6. The members are evangelistically intentional.<\/li>\n
  7. These healthy churches have pastors who love the members.<\/li>\n
  8. The churches allow their pastors to spend time in sermon preparation.<\/li>\n
  9. There is clarity of the process of disciple making.<\/li>\n
  10. These churches do less better.<\/li>\n
  11. The process of discipleship moves members into ongoing small groups.<\/li>\n
  12. Corporate prayer is intentional and prioritized.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Stated this way without explanation, this list is only so helpful. Check out Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a> of Rainer’s article his expansion and and explanation of each point.<\/p>\n

    The take away is simple: to praise God that these trends are taking place within the church, and to pursue more fervently these priorities here at DSC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thom Rainer is CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources and a reliable commentator on trends within evangelicalism. Last week,… Continue Reading ›<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}