SEVEN WAYS TO RATE YOUR CHURCH

Your congregation's spiritual environment can be tested

by Leith Anderson

1.       Sensing the presence of God.

People expect God to come to church. I wish I could define what exactly people are looking for. I can't. I guess it's like beauty—you know it when you see it even though you can't put it in words.  Experiencing the supernatural is such a high priority in today's culture that its importance dwarfs everything else in rating a church's atmosphere.

2.       Others-centered.
Some churches are self-centered. Some are others-centered. It's not hard to tell the difference. A friend recently entered a church lobby on a Sunday morning and walked straight into a donut-and-coffee hour. The people were talking and laughing and having a good time. They liked their church, but they never noticed her.By contrast, an others-centered church is immediately interested in new people, what they need, and how the church can help.

3.       Understandable terminology

Healthy churches tend to speak in terms everyone can understand. The most alienating lingo is abbreviations: BYO may mean "Baptist Youth Organization" to church members but "Bring Your Own" beverages (or booze) to everyone else. Blessed are those churches where everyone can understand what is being communicated!

4.       People who look like me

Our level of comfort can be high or low depending on how quickly we find someone else who looks like us. In a room full of women, a man thinks, I'm in the wrong place. In a church where all the people up front are men, women wonder if they are welcome. In a gathering where everyone is young and casually dressed, the older person in a business suit feels out of place. When everyone else is white, the person of color notices.

5.       Healthy problem handling

You can often tell more about a church by the way it handles problems than by the way it handles success. This makes for an easy measure because every church has problems. What happens when the sound system emits a squeal or drops into embarrassing silence? Do nursery workers apologize or become defensive when they can't find your baby's diaper bag?  What makes a healthy church is not the absence of problems. It's how problems are handled.

6.       Accessibility

Wheelchair ramps and parking stalls are only the beginning of accessibility. Is there clear and easy access to getting questions answered, meeting new people, talking to church leaders, joining the membership, discovering opportunities for spiritual growth, becoming part of a small group, resolving complaints, and signing up to serve? High ratings go to churches that are "barrier free" in every sense of the term.

7.       Sense of expectancy

 Listen to hallway conversations about the church, and you can decide if the primary verb tense is past, present, or future. Most healthy churches are hopeful churches. They are permeated with high expectations of God's blessing for the future.

The majority of people who come to church feel beaten up Monday through Saturday; they are not looking for another beating on Sunday. They come to church for healing and hope. They want to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. They want to be told that God is there, God has not forgotten them, and God will bless them in the future. The church that truly believes and says that "because of Jesus Christ the best is yet to come"—that is the church that breathes spiritually healthy air. 

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