What Does a Vital Congregation Look Like, Part 3
J. Russell Crabtree wrote his book “Owl Sight” as an explanation to the Congregational Assessment Tool that is offered through Holy Cow!. As you remember, Redeemer took the CAT survey during your last interim period in 2018. To fully understand the results that come from the CAT survey it is necessary to read and understand the information about evidence-based discernment that is explained in this book. In the chapter entitled: “The Strike Zone: What Your Church is Aiming For”, Crabtree explores the definition of a healthy church (pg 65):
“A healthy, vital church, like a healthy vital individual, expresses itself in the world in many and varied ways, which cannot be fully anticipated and therefore cannot be reliably benchmarked… If we reviewed all the literature, we would probably discover 613 criteria to measure the vitality of a church but that no one would ever use… I would like to propose that the targets are satisfaction and energy. The evidence suggests that a church is vital and healthy when members bear witness to their experience in the body of Christ as one that is both satisfying and energizing…. I have found that I can get a read on the health and vitality of a church by asking two simple questions:
How satisfied are you with what is happening in your church overall?
What do you perceive is the level of energy and excitement in your church?”
As leaders we have been contemplating what it means from the 2018 survey results which show that Redeemer is in the High Energy – Low Satisfaction Quadrant of the Map (referred to as the chaos quadrant). There is concern that this quadrant does not seem like a healthy place to be. There are questions as to whether this 4 year old survey remains relevant. There is fear that over the past 4 years (with staff turnover & COVID) we have gone further into chaos. It seems that we have more questions than answers, at times.
Speaking of leaders…Peter L. Steinke in his book “Healthy Congregations” compares a healthy individual with a healthy community. Both need healthy immune systems. He writes (pg 91):
“The immune function, determining what does or does not benefit the congregation, is the task of leadership. Good leadership provides good immune functioning. Well before the practice of vaccination, physicians knew that people who had an infection once recovered more quickly if infected again. These people were said to have ‘wise blood.’
Similarly, healthy congregations develop an immune system. They do not permit pathogens to inflict harm on the community. Mature leadership gives the congregation wise blood.”