Definition of a "good" Church

So my last post got me thinking:

What is the definition of a healthy church? What are the characteristics? What is the definition of an unhealthy church and what are those characteristics?

Should this be something that is also categorized in addition to an overall definition of health? I'm thinking along the lines of the picture of administrative health, leadership health, ministerial health, etc.

Why we do what we do

Your last post, Administration & Pastoring, has kept me thinking. I will forever get wrapped up in the business of ministry while neglecting to give thought or attention to the ministry of ministry. However, without the act of doing ministry, the business of ministry is entirely pointless. So the following is a public service announcement as to why I want to do ministry consulting. I'd also be interested in hearing the "why" behind your involvement; it always gives everything a deeper meaning to me if i know the "whys" behind things.

I've been around the church for my entire life. I've visited a multitude of churches and been involved in a good amount of those. What I find time and time again is that people in church leadership generally have good intentions, but ultimately struggle in how to bring their good intentions to fruition. In the end, the ministry is a mess and people who need real help never attain it.

I also have an unshakable belief that the church is very uniquely positioned to be a tremendous positive voice in society. Even with the bad reputation the church has secured for itself in today's society, it is still overpoweringly influential in individuals' lives, and individuals are indeed the people who make up this thing we call "society". Moreover, if the church actually built a very positive reputation for itself in the public view, it would be an even more potent influence over society and culture.

I want more than anything to see the church succeed because of these things. What other organization can so positively impact both an individual and an entire community? However, to maximize on this potential, churches have to be well-run. They absolutely cannot be a breeding ground for commitment to the mediocre, a stagnant attraction to the status quo. They must be inspirational, empowering, purposeful, smoothly operating.

The glaring deficiency in attaining this, in my experience, is on the side of administration and execution. Ministry has not been treated as a profession - it has been treated as a role that can be filled by any person with a big heart, charisma, and good speaking ability. I want to see churches move beyond this and professionalize what they do.

Why not be excellent at devising and executing strategy? Why not be excellent at leadership and developing people? Why not have a rampant intolerance for subpar performance? Are we not working for God Almighty? The Creator of the Universe? The Sovereign Lord? Then why do we give sorry attempts at truly carrying out His mission to help the poor, the sick, the lost, the needy, the orphaned, the widowed, the broken?

So anyway, that's my half rant / half discussion on why I'm doing this. Very simply, I want to see churches excel at ministering to people, and they can't do that if they are clueless as to how to run an organization.

Adminstration & Pastoring

One of the things that I have seen come up in our conversations several times is a sort of dichotomy between the real need for good administration and leadership in the church today vs the other real need for true pastoral care and spiritual formation.  For example, our conversation the other evening about training volunteers and my own lament of my youth ministry in Fresno revolved around these competing themes.  After some more consideration over the past few days, I have some other thoughts.  My first two years in Fresno was spent building 5 great volunteer leaders-- 2 females and 3 males.  These leaders were there faithfully each week but the two female leaders never could make the transition over to doing 1:1 meetings with the students which is what I wanted them to do.  The male leaders were much better at this although it still took them a while.  All but 1 moved on during the past 2.5 years and one of the female leaders that had difficulty in the beginning, I hired last spring to serve as a part-time intern.  All 5 leaders still have significant relationships with students in that youth group.  And I did leave the youth group last spring with my 1 volunteer who I had for all 4 years and then this intern.  As well during those 4 years, I continually created new avenues for intergenerational involvement and interaction to take place and placed emphasis on family ministry and getting a solid group of 4 parents who generally came to most events.  

Yet the ministry was still built around me-- my energy and thinking constantly feeding the system.  And this is absolutely needed and what the new guy failed at doing.  My energy and thinking unleashed others' energies and ideas.  The new guy's failure to take the reigns served as a way of putting all of these leaders at arm's length.  

My other thought was that even though good volunteers were developed, parents group formed, and intergenerational collaboration created, perhaps always creating an "understudy"-- someone you raise up to take over when you are finished-- is needed.  However, this seems to be somewhat problematic because I am probably not going to attract someone with a similar skill set that I possess.  My volunteers and interns were not people who the congregation of UPC would choose to serve as Director but served as great volunteers.  

Second, I continually wish that there would be more "pastors" in churches today-- individuals who take the task of 1:1 pastoral care, visitation, and spiritual direction seriously.  

The pastor-scholar is also needed-- pastors who can truly handle Scripture and theology in effective ways that address the issues of our times.  

So, I think we have three areas that need to be addressed in today's churches-- pastor as systems thinker and structural manager, pastor as care-provider and priest-comforter, and pastor as scholar-teacher and prophet-challenger.  These are all really important and perhaps provide us three areas that we can address in our consulting practice.

Definitions

I think it's time for us to define our terms. I'm working on the revisions to the survey and the terms we need for that are listed below. I'm curious to see how you define them and what you see is the general overview of each of their activities (as in what do they do). I have started my definitions, but I think it would be good for us to define them independently first, then collaboratively second. This way our definitions are not influenced by the other's ideas and we have a better shot at coming up with something unique.

Here are the terms that will help define some survey questions:

One-on-one professional ministry coach
Ministry consultancy (organization)
Ministry consultant (person)