8/13/21 by Larry Barker
Healthy Church Solutions is the church resource ministry of the BMA of America. Our mission is to help strengthen existing churches to become who God intended them to be. The status of the church in North America is pretty alarming and warrants our attention. We are told that 85% of American churches are plateaued or are in a state of decline. If these stats are true and we apply them to the number of churches we have in the BMA today, that means there are only 180-200 churches that are healthy and actively moving forward on the mission of God. It’s so important for us to examine our spiritual health and our churches.
One way we are striving to be an encouragement to pastors, leaders, members, and churches who have a desire to strengthen the ministry God has entrusted them with is through our Healthy Church Podcast (healthychurchpodcast.com). There are now 59 episodes that come out every Tuesday and you can find them at our website or on your favorite apps such as Spotify and others. These weekly episodes talk honestly about what it means to be a part of a healthy church. There are no perfect churches but by God’s grace, we can begin to dialogue about what changes can be made in our lives as leaders and in our churches.
Another way we are working hard to encourage pastors is through our Pastor Zoom calls. These are usually twice a month and we zero in on topics that are close to the hearts of pastors such as prayer, discipleship, navigating a pandemic, leadership, and more. These Zoom calls have included pastors from over 10 different states and we can create a culture of sharing ideas, asking questions, and giving helpful content to pastors and leaders through right on time training. In our last two calls, we discussed multiplying disciples and multiplying leaders. Our next Zoom call is Thursday, August 12 at 1:30 PM CDT. Please join us.
The third way we are trying to encourage you is through our Pastor Encouragement videos that come out every two weeks on our Facebook Pages. We have heard from our Executive Directors of Missions, Dr. John David Smith; LifeWord, Donny Parrish; Ministers Resource, Dr. Steve Crawley, and many of our pastors. These videos are to remind us that we are on this journey together and we are not alone. Healthy Church Solutions is focused on the individual leader’s soul-care knowing that we cannot expect a healthy church if the leaders are not spiritually healthy. You cannot give what you do not possess and leading on empty will eventually lead to burnout or worse.
Healthy Church Solutions has also been working diligently to once again offer you a venue to get away from the hustle and bustle to be refreshed and recharged. You are invited to join us September 27-29 in Dallas, TX for our very first ReCharge conference. Click here for more information and to register for the ReCharge Conference. The BMA of America is committed to resourcing you and also providing a spiritual oasis. The entire time we are together we will be pouring into you through speakers, singers, and testimonies (a BMA pastor who almost died from COVID) that we believe will inspire and revitalize you. Make sure you check out the ad in this paper and go to the link where you can get more details to register.
Healthy Church Solutions has also been working very hard to build a resource library through a partnership with Right Now Media. Through our Church Dynamics Training alone we have resources to help your church learn how to develop and improve your systems. Systems are reproducible and interconnected processes by which a church actualizes its values and achieves its mission through quality control and growth engines. There are free trainings on the following systems: Reproductive, Outreach, Assimilation, Worship Service Planning, Spiritual Growth/Discipleship, Pastoral Care, Ministry Placement, and the Financial System.
There is also training to help you in pastoral transition, dealing with discouragement, evaluating your church’s ministry, dealing with difficult people, and dealing with time demands. If you are looking for training on one-on-one discipleship we have that through Steve McCoy and Small Circle. We also still have Activate which has become the revitalization arm of Healthy Church Solutions. A free church health survey will be available for free hopefully by the time you read this article. Activate is a Bible-based discovery process, led by the Holy Spirit, driven by the pastor, supported by a team within the church, discipled by the pastor’s Huddle, and coached by the Activate staff.
We agree with Mark Clifton’s mission statement, “We are committed to decreasing the death rate of existing churches while simultaneously increasing the birth rate of new churches!” It is not an either/or choice but rather a both/and solution. In Made for More they state, “The role of the local church is to be the mobilizing home base. This empowers all disciples to discover their calling and then deploy them to express the fullness of Jesus into every corner of culture and every sphere of society.” This is the heart of your BMA of America leadership and we desire to serve you and your church through Healthy Church Solutions.