Take Your Church's Pulse

Book excerpt: Take Your Church's Pulse presents ten vital signs of a healthy church--five key commitments and five key functions. It then introduce you to a church-health diagnostic tool you can apply to your setting. Thousands of pastors and leaders around the world have found this paradigm helpful in organizing the ministry and mission of the local church. This book and the free diagnostic tool it presents are most useful if accompanied by a healthy process of conversations. With such a process, led by the Spirit, this book can help you discern a preferred future for your community of faith. Koster and Wagenveld write: "A healthy community of faith is rooted first of all in the character and nature of God. It understands its mission and purpose in the world and organizes its life and work to be faithful and effective in its context. None of these vital signs stands alone. It is a combination of factors that together make up a faithful and fruitful organism, the living Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no magic in the number ten, but for the teaching purposes it has worked quite well in different cultural contexts in providing ideas and a language for discussing important issues in congregational life and mission." The intended audience for this book is any pastor, leader, or church member who is interest in having healthy conversations with others to strengthen the local church.