FREE: Healthy Church Assessment (20 Areas):

Developed by Rod Dempsey

HEALTHY CHURCH ASSESSMENT: (Healthy Systems = Healthy Body)

Our church is a place: (To the left of the number rate from 1 (low) to 5 (great).

1. Where passionate prayer is continually being offered up for the lost and for laborers through all the ministries and during special prayer meetings.
2. Where the gospel is being proclaimed by word and deed. People are being saved weekly. “We are showing and sharing the Gospel to our community.”
3. Where new believers are baptized on a weekly basis.
4. Where worship occurs at the individual level throughout the week and it is powerfully manifested when the body gathers together.
5. Where the Sunday morning messages are Biblical, powerful, practical and applicable.
6. Where new believers are intentionally and individually nurtured and developed.
7. Where believers are willingly and sacrificially investing their financial resources in the Kingdom of God.
8. Where the “new members of the Body” are being assimilated into the church and volunteering to serve, get in groups and sacrificially give.
9. Where the leaders in every department see their role as equipping and empowering the saints.
10. Where a majority of the saints are growing in maturity (connecting them to Jesus through the disciplines).
11. Where the saints are growing in unity and love for one another.
12. Where the saints are encouraged to discover, know and use their Spiritual gifts.
13. Where a majority of the saints are using their gifts “properly” (according to God’s design).
14. Where relational groups are intentionally developed and growing in their love for one another (the one another’s are happening).
15. Where relational groups are lovingly sharing their lives and the gospel with unbelievers (living on mission in community).
16. Where leaders for the Great Commission are intentionally being developed.
17. Where relational groups are multiplying new leaders and new groups.
18. Where the poor and “least of these” is intentionally being ministered to in our community.
19. Where the mission of Christ is being accomplished locally, regionally, nationally, and globally by members from within the local body and we are experiencing the favor/ blessing of Jesus.
20. Where new churches are being planted/ partnering because of effective discipleship and effective leadership development.

DISCUSS:

• What are the strongest areas?

• What are the weakest areas?

• What are some ways to strengthen the weak areas?

Prayer Quotes to Encourage You!

Compiled by Rod Dempsey:

1. Nothing of eternal significance ever happens apart from prayer. – Jerry Falwell
2. All of our failures are prayer failures. Jerry Falwell
3. The size of your God, determines the size of your prayer request. The size of your prayer request, determines the size of your answers.- Jerry Falwell.
4. Jesus taught that perseverance is the essential element in prayer. – E. M. Bounds
5. Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.  ~ Richard Baxter, 1615 – 1691
6. Groaning’s which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused. ~ Spurgeon
7. Prayer in private results in boldness  in public. -Edwin Louis Cole
8. If your day is hemmed in with prayer, it is less likely to come unraveled. Annon
9. Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together.  Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other’s hearts in prayer. ~ Charles Finney
10. The Spirit, when He prays through us, or helps us to meet the mighty “ougthness” of right praying, trims our praying down to the will of God…. ~ R.A.Torrey
11. It is possible to move men, through God, by prayer alone.  ~ Hudson Taylor
12. Before we can pray, “Lord, Thy Kingdom come,” we must be willing to pray, “My Kingdom go.”  ~Alan Redpath
13. I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it. – John Wesley
14. Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God’s voice is its most essential part.  Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine.  ~ Andrew Murray
15. Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation and for me the most important part is listening to God’s replies.  ~ Frank C. Laubach
16. The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God. -Charles Bent
17. Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers. ~ J. Sidlow Baxter
18. The sovereign cure for worry is prayer. -William James
19. Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God’s Word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again. – William Gurnall…
20. Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.” –E. Stanley Jones
21. Those who do not believe do not pray. This is a good functional definition of faith. Faith prays… unbelief does not. –John A. Hardon
22. If you can’t pray a door open, don’t pry it open.– Lyell Rader
23. Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. –Oswald Chambers
24. When the fire of prayer goes out, the barrenness of busy-ness takes over. -George Carey
25. Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure – DL Moody

What is the Purpose of the Baby in the Manger?

Written by Rod Dempsey

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BABY IN THE MANGER?

From the Angel’s mouth, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-12). Praise God. Jesus came to save us from our sins! As a result of Jesus coming to us and dying in our place there is another birth to examine and that is birth of the Church. Notice the pattern. Jesus is born and over time He grows and matures. After a while He publicly proclaims His mission in Luke 4:18-19:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

As He proclaims the Good News… He is the Good News. He heals the sick, feeds the hungry, has personal conversations with hurting people, teaches the people, gives sight to the blind, casts out demons, raises the dead and dies on the cross for all the sins of the world past, present and future! Before His death though He explains that He will “build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:16-19). After His death and resurrection, the church is born in Acts 2. Continuing the birth motif… whenever a person believes in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for their sins they are “born again” (John 3) and this new creation is part of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). In Act 2 we see that the new followers of Jesus immediately follow His example and, “they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.”

The church has come into existence for the purpose of “birthing” little Christ’s (Col. 1:24-29). We are the mystery that has been hidden from past ages and generations who are maturing and using their spiritual gits, given to them by Christ, to build up the other members of the Body. Ultimately so that Christ’s body will become the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus in a hurting world. As each member matures and develops his or spiritual gift and uses it according to the plan of Christ… the Body matures and grows healthy (Eph. 4:11-16).

The Body of Christ then becomes the visible loving representation of Christ in a community doing the very things Christ did while here on earth. In Christ’s love, using His supernatural gifts, the Body meets the needs of a community, and the people not only hear about Christ they see and are impacted by His love through His disciples. The Good News of Christ is seen, felt, heard. The Gospel is visibly shown and verbally shared.

Fulfilling the mission of Christ to “make disciples” is actually making healthy members of the Body of Christ who look, think, feel and act like Christ and together through their gifts serve the world by preaching the gospel to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and they set free those who are oppressed, while proclaiming the favorable year of the Lord.” Together they become the visible representation of Jesus on this earth and that is the ultimate reason of the Baby in the manger. The Baby in the manger has come so that multitudes will believe in Him and be born again to become the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus to a lost and hurting world.