Church Health

[Reg]

I may have mentioned this to you before, I wrote out some ideas for a publication called "CHURCH HEALTH" at the cottage last summer. It was sitting on the back burner until in a recent sermon at our church titled "What is Church". One scripture was quoted and that motivated me to finally put it together.

I finally finished the first edition of it. Here's the first page:

CHURCH HEALTH

Becoming a Healthy Body March 31, 2006


In this issue...
Why The Need For This Publication? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Checklist for Responsible Christians. . . . . . . . 2
Check list of Cult Characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Spiritual Abuse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..3-4

Introduction:

Why The Need For This Publication?

This is an initial sample copy of a new
publication called “Church Health”?

Ephesians 4:16 (New Living Translation)

Under his direction, the whole body is fitted
together perfectly. As each part does its own
special work, it helps the other parts grow, so
that the whole body is healthy and growing and
full of love.

Why the need for such a publication? In the USA
alone there are an estimated 5,000 cults actively
recruiting people of all ages, from all walks of life, at
the rate of tens of thousands of new recruits every
year. In Canada, while not as many, it still is a very
real problem.

We hope this site will help you to learn how
to establish criteria for defining a cult, how to
recognize cultic and spiritually abusive behaviors,
and how to guard against unwanted psychological
persuasion - the techniques used by cults and
spiritually abusive groups (and unethical salespersons)
to recruit and retain their members.

Cult Awareness & Information Centre
http://www.caic.org.au/

In Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven
Church” at the beginning he says, “The issue is
church health, not church growth. When your
church is healthy, growth will occur naturally.
Healthy consistent growth is the result of
balancing the five Biblical purposes of the church."
Like he also says, “If you concentrate on building
people, God will build the Church”.

So this is the reason that we should be focusing
our attention on Church Health. Healthy things
grow naturally. We cannot make things grow. All
we can do is plant the seed or give birth. As long
as we provide correct nutrition to keep them free
from disease & sickness, they will grow naturally.
Jesus said, “I will build my Church....”
He is the one that will make it grow. Our job is to
keep it healthy. Jesus will make it grow.



Comments???