EP 253 – Evaluating Church Health and Setting Goals with Brandon Moore
Welcome back to the bootcamp! Brandon Moore stops by again to continue our conversation focused on setting goals and evaluating church maturity.
- Related Episodes:
To hear more you can listen to the audio from Brandon’s breakout session at the 2024 CalvaryCon by clicking here and scrolling down to his breakout session. You can access his PowerPoint file by clicking here.
This episode is packed with practical insights to help you assess and enhance the health and maturity of your church. Here’s a quick summary:
Evaluating Church Health
– Identities: Worshipers of God, family with one another, and missionaries to the world.
– Foundations: Growth through the gospel, scripture, and prayer.
– Structures: Leadership, membership, and discipleship pathways.
Steps for Assessing Church Maturity
– Rating System: Leaders rate each area on a scale from 1 to 10.
– Evidence: Provide two pieces of tangible evidence for each rating.
– Gap Analysis: Identify why the rating isn’t higher to pinpoint improvement areas.
- Identities (Love)
- Worshipers of God: Measure joy in the Lord.
- Family with One Another: Measure unity and tangible evidence of unity.
- Missionaries to the World: Measure compassion that leads to action.
- Foundations (Humility)
- Hope in the Gospel: Where does your church place its hope for growth?
- Submission to Scripture: Are the members living under the authority of the Word in practical ways?
- Dependence on Prayer: Is there a deep-rooted dependence on prayer in your church’s culture?
- Structures (Wisdom)
- Leadership: Evaluate the structure for self-governing and development of leaders.
- Membership: Look for clear covenant commitments and stewardship of time, talent, and treasure.
- Discipleship: Establish pathways for growth from new believers to potential leaders.
Practical Takeaways:
– Start with Foundations: Ensure the gospel, scripture, and prayer are central to your church’s growth strategies.
– Focus on Identities: Cultivate worship, family unity, and missionary compassion before addressing organizational structures.
– Implement the Rating System: Use the 1-10 rating system with your leaders to assess readiness and improvement areas.
– Encourage Open Dialogue: Foster open conversations among leaders about church health and maturity.
– Highlight Positives: While discussing areas for improvement, also acknowledge and celebrate your church’s strengths.
We hope these insights help you lead your church toward health and maturity. Join us for our next episode as we dive deeper into practical ministry advice.
- 00:00 Introduction and Recap
- 00:44 Evaluating Church Health
- 01:54 Steps for Assessing Maturity
- 05:12 Understanding Ecclesiology
- 06:48 Unity in the Church
- 11:24 Foundations of a Mature Church
- 11:38 The Role of Humility
- 12:57 Submission to Scripture
- 14:39 Dependence on Prayer
- 16:47 Setting Goals for Church Structures
- 17:47 Maximizing Momentum with Structures
- 18:51 The Role of Wisdom in Church Structures
- 19:58 Indigenous Church Planting Principles
- 20:39 Wise Self-Governance in Leadership
- 21:30 Self-Sustaining Church Membership
- 22:43 Self-Replicating Discipleship Pathways
- 23:48 Evaluating Church Maturity
- 26:36 Encouragement and Prayer
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Show transcripts are an approximation of the podcast, audio should be consulted for exact detail
[00:00:00] JimBo Stewart: Here we are back at it again, back at the bootcamp. Hope you’re ready for the next episode. We’re going to continue the conversation with Dr. Brandon Moore, here at the podcast on the bootcamp. Talking about setting goals is one of the things we’ve been talking about for a while. We had you on this.
This is going to be the episode, Brandon, where it all comes together.
[00:00:19] Brandon Moore: just all the light bulbs finally going to go off.
[00:00:22] JimBo Stewart: So we had you on to talk about, understanding and grasping church health, church maturity, where you gave us the categories of healthy identities, healthy foundations, and healthy structures. Right. So we had that episode.
And then we had you on to talk about setting goals. And then we dug a little deeper and we went a little more practical into how to set those goals. And one of the things we established in that episode was that you need to first evaluate. And assess where you’re at and define reality. And then you need to clarify where you’re headed and then you need to implement the strategies that come out of that, right?
So that’s kind of some basics on goal setting. One of the areas that we started to hone in on that I felt like we needed to, we need to dive a little deeper on this. So we said leadership, ecclesiology, missiology, low hanging fruit. Those are your four categories. If you’re going to set five quarterly goals, let one be leadership, let one be ecclesiology, let one be missiology, and let two be low hanging fruit.
One of those top three need to be a bigger goal. The other two need to be medium, just to rehash all of that. But if we’re in the assessing and evaluating stage, In ecclesiology, you, there was a lot of information and I want to dive a little deeper into understanding, when we measure that and we have, how do we evaluate and understand some of those categories in a way that help us identify where we’re at and where we need to go.
[00:01:53] Brandon Moore: Yeah. Yeah. So, I want to give a few steps, I think, for just how do you use the framework we’ll talk about?
because I think it’ll be helpful to have those steps
in
[00:02:02] JimBo Stewart: mind.
[00:02:03] Brandon Moore: before we talk about the framework.
[00:02:05] JimBo Stewart: So we’re, we’re in Colorado at the Calvary Family of Churches Conference, and you’re doing a breakout on this topic. So we’re going to take your PowerPoint and drop it a link to that in the show notes.
So that as you referenced, if somebody wants some visual referencing and understanding of what you’re talking about, they can, they can grab that to give them some handles.
[00:02:23] Brandon Moore: understanding about, they can, they can grab that and give them some
handles. Rating systems and things like that. we can, we can miss a lot of the depth that we really need to have when it comes to evaluation. And so, the way I would encourage you
assess for maturity, with this framework, we’re going to talk about is one, yes, you got to start with rating, on each of these of maturity when it comes to the identities, foundations, and structures we’ve talked about.
So, rate one to 10. All right. just where is your church at? Not you personally, not a group of people, but your overarching church. and then step two is provide two pieces of evidence as to why you rated the We’ll talk about in a moment Join the Lord as worshipers. Why you rated that a seven?
Provide two pieces of evidence. Hey this
like
evidence in the life of the church. So like, like don’t just give theory, but like tangible evidence of maybe a certain group of people in your church. You see, you know, the joy in the Lord playing out in this way. You see joy in the Lord through just the way like congregational singing is vibrant or, you know, so it can, it can,
but get real practical and tangible as what your evidence is.
Something you could point another pastor or visitor to and say, that’s like, that’s the joy of the Lord
right there.
All right. and I know this takes some time. It takes a lot more time than just like going through and rating a bunch of, of things on a list kind of survey. But, but I think it’s, much more valuable for you.
So rate it one to 10. Then step two is provide a couple pieces of evidence. And then step three, I think is maybe the most vital part. so if you rate it a seven in step three, you’re going to, explain why you didn’t rate it one to two points
[00:04:17] JimBo Stewart: higher.
That’s a really, I think it’s a really helpful question because I think sometimes we get a little bit arbitrary in the numbers that we pick.
But I really think that question. Helps take it a little bit deeper and make you think through it a little further.
That’s a good, that’s good. But
[00:04:34] Brandon Moore: But it’s also going to expose, like, what’s missing that would make, You more
mature
in
[00:04:40] JimBo Stewart: Which helps you identify and clarify where we’re going.
[00:04:44] Brandon Moore: And, and potentially
like you actually are ending up writing out potential goals in this one right here. So this whole theme, we’ve been talking about the making goals. This last piece could very well, if you do it, well help you to identify this is.
This is the goal, or at least the vision of where we want to get to. And we’ve got to set some goals
to
get
there.
So,
[00:05:06] JimBo Stewart: Okay. So what would be the, the next section that we would want to measure
and
evaluate?
[00:05:12] Brandon Moore: Yeah, so we want to, we want to measure first the mature identities of, a biblically mature church.
And what are those? We’ve talked about them before. Worshippers of God, family with one another in the church, and then missionaries to the world around us. And so all of those are purposeful identities. They’re for the glory of God and the good of others, but they’re, also relational Yeah.
right?
They’re all relating to either God, one another, or the world. And so all of our relationships, in fact, I mean, the law is summed up with what? Love, right? Love for God and love for others. And so our maturity as worshipers, family, and missionaries is to be marked primarily by love, a love for God that, that I think as we look at scripture, like the way that results is joy in the Lord.
Like the way you like the evidence for that is joy in the Lord. Right. And so, I think of, John the Baptist when I think about that, like when he sees Jesus and his followers are all freaking out and you know, they’re all going after Jesus and, and John’s like, no, this is like, my, my joy is now complete.
Like, this is what it’s all about. Like, because I
love.
and I love Jesus. And so, so joy in the Lord, is what you’re measuring there as worshipers. and that’s what, like, when I’m talking about rating one to 10, that’s what I’m saying as worshipers, you’re rating joy in the Lord, as family, you’re rating unity with one another.
I mean, obviously in replant world, like, I think this can be one of the biggest, struggles, in many churches, you may be walking into, you A recent church split, or you may just be having all kinds of
infighting
about
preferences.
[00:06:48] JimBo Stewart: One of the things I often try to clarify when I talk about unity, you know, Ephesians chapter 4, make every effort.
Or be eager to maintain the unity that is in the spirit of the bond of peace. Um, and one of the things I’d like to clarify is, I think there’s a little bit of a continuum of how we misunderstand unity. On, on one side of the continuum would be this heroic CEO. They believe in my vision and me, and that’s unity, right?
Unity is, I said, Real loudly, we’re going this direction. And you said, that sounds great. We’re now in unity. That’s not what Ephesians 4 is talking about. That’s not what Jesus prayed for in the high priestly prayer. the other side of that is not the heroic CEO, but the hospice chaplain is there defining unity as a lack of conflict.
nobody is upset, right there. Nobody is mad. We’re not fighting. We’re not, you know, we do a business meeting. And nothing happens, and that’s beautiful. Because that means nobody is upset. And that’s not what, if you look at like Ephesians chapter 4, if you look at what Jesus prays for in the High Priestly Prayer, uh, it is theological.
I say, I say unity, Theological
ecclesiological, and missiological. And it goes back to even these three categories that we’ve been talking about with goals, right? And theological in the leadership, who’s the head of the church, and in ecclesiology, and what is, what is the church who is God called us to be and missiology what does he called us to do?
That’s where unity has to be is in those things, and that’s why I think these three goal categories that you’ve established are so helpful. And the things that we’re evaluating in these relationships, because it’s that relational unity in who we are horizontally and vertically.
[00:08:35] Brandon Moore: Yeah.
I mean, with unity, this is oftentimes where churches would maybe rate themselves higher because there’s a lack of conflict
or
they’re the
friendly church,
right?
That’s the one where the friendliest church in town. And then a guest comes in
and
they’re like,
this is not,
is anything but friendly.
and so, I mean, I think that’s why, once again, you’ve got to provide the evidences of what you rate. And then like, What would, what would it look like to be rated one to two points higher? All right. and this is just a really important category
to
do that. And, so, cause unity is
not uniformity either. and, unity, I mean, as we see it in
the
Trinity
is
diversity,
In,
unity. And so, that’s the picture of what we’re talking about when it
comes
to
[00:09:14] JimBo Stewart: Yeah. and
I so uniform. I always, I always say uniformity is like watching. Kids under seven play soccer every kid is
playing exactly
the
same position.
Oh yeah. Kicker. Yeah. That’s the, that’s the position, right? It’s not even a real soccer position. Everybody’s playing it and they’re in a huddle and they’re just kicking the ball.
And if anybody scores it’s like it’s on accident. Right. And Oh yeah. And then it’s a huge deal. And, and you’re kind of hoping they scored in the right goal, because there’s a
pretty
good
odds
they
did
not
[00:09:42] Brandon Moore: Yeah, and both
[00:09:42] JimBo Stewart: teams
[00:09:42] Brandon Moore: may
celebrate when
the
ball
goes
in
the
[00:09:44] JimBo Stewart: goal
Correct. ’cause it’s super exciting ’cause we’re all kind of doing
the same
thing. Whereas unity is an actual real soccer team, right? And there are different positions that have different roles, but they are all working towards the same thing. They are all part of the same thing, but everybody has their own role. That’s the body of Christ at play. That’s Ephesians 4 16. When each part plays its role properly, the church builds
itself
up in love.
[00:10:10] Brandon Moore: Yeah.
So that’s unity with one another. Then, then as missionaries, what are we measuring love with? it’s compassion towards the world. and this, I think I said in the last episode, but, this is not just like, sympathy or, I don’t know, some sort of sentimentality towards the world, but rather, this is a deep rooted lament over the havoc that sin has caused, in the world around us, but particularly individual people’s lives that you interact with.
It’s a compassion that wells up within you,
to action
with compassionate action. So it’s not just a feeling. But it’s a, a compassionate action as well. And so, what you’re measuring there is, compassion that leads your church to urgently show and
tell
the
gospel
with
the
world around them.
So that’s, that’s the measure of love, for those identities. Then, we shift gears to the foundations
of the
church.
These,
once
again,
these
are
[00:11:02] JimBo Stewart: the
So summarize for us real
[00:11:03] Brandon Moore: Yeah.
[00:11:04] JimBo Stewart: up to this point.
[00:11:05] Brandon Moore: Yeah.
Okay. So identities, we’ve got, worshipers, family, missionaries, your identities are marked in maturity by love, joy in the Lord as worshipers unity with one another as family and compassion
towards
the
world
as
missionaries.
[00:11:21] JimBo Stewart: All right. Then next, what, what are
we
moving to next?
[00:11:23] Brandon Moore: So now we’ve got, well,
What’s the primary means God has given us for growing in maturity as worshipers, family and missionaries? That’s the foundations of the church, right? I mean, that’s the, the means by which we grow and that’s the gospel, scripture and prayer. All right. And so with this, the primary mark of maturity to know that like your foundations are, well maintained, that they’re strong is humility.
Like a mature church is going to be humble. They’re going to be deeply dependent. Um, and, and it’s
not like
a humility is,
sometimes I think humility can get a bad rap in our culture today of just, letting people run over you, you know, all of that kind of thing. And it’s not biblical humility.
All right, but
humility
is one of the
The number one things we see throughout scripture, a fear of the Lord is humility, a, repenting and believing is humility, acknowledging that I can’t save myself. all those kinds of things. And so the foundations really like all revolve around this mark of maturity of humility.
and, and so with the gospel, that’s, hope in the gospel. That’s what you’re measuring. where’s your church hope, for growth,
both
Numerically as well as their own maturity in Christ, like what, where’s the hope placed in? It’s not like, is it in like, I just do these disciplines. If I can do these things, I can show up to church and like, I can make myself more like Christ.
It’s not those things aren’t important. Those are the means by which we grow. But, but where’s your hope? Is it in the gospel? Like true humility that depends upon the Lord starts with a hope in the gospel for our maturity.
then,
with.
the scriptures, it’s submission to scripture, true humility in our foundations means we submit to scripture, not our preferences.
and, submission to scripture means not that we just mentally affirm the authority of the word, which as a Southern Baptist and most anybody else that’s listening to this podcast, you likely affirm and your people likely
affirm
the
authority
of
scripture
in
their
lives.
Thanks But the reason churches are dying is because
oftentimes
there’s
no
lived
authority
of
scripture in
their
[00:13:26] JimBo Stewart: lives.
I think it’s the number one reason. I’ve often said that the number one goal, the first goal, like the first thing out of the bat, you have to establish is the authority, the real actual lived applied authority of the word of God in your own leadership and in the congregation. And you have to lead change through
the
word.
You
have
to
lead
everything
you
do
through
the
word.
yeah,
[00:13:50] Brandon Moore: yeah, and so humility as a pastor means submitting your own ideas to scripture It also means leading with the word And all you do like it’s
not Developing just the best arguments you can for why your church should do what they should do, but rather it’s Lead your meetings with the word.
It’s, when ideas come up, ask the question, what
do you think
scripture thinks about that? and so these are the kinds of things you need to be measuring. Are your people submitting to the word when confronted with it, when their preferences are confronted and opinions are confronted and their latest agenda from, you know, the, the late night TV is confronted.
are
they
humble
enough
to say.
I
may
be wrong about
that.
Let me,
at least that, right. And that’s a, that’s a mark of I’m submitting my life to scripture. So, we’ve got hope in the gospel submission to scripture and then dependence on prayer. I mean, look, like there’s, there is no power for replanting apart from a deep dependence upon the Lord and prayer.
And I say this as someone who has vast rooms for growth and maturity as, a prayer warrior. All right. I mean, I’ve got many people I look to that, man, I just want to, I, I know that
I
need to
grow
in this.
And so,
this
is not a guilt ridden call to, you know, be
a better
prayer or
a better
praying
church.
But.
I think it’s
just a
biblical call. .Yeah. Like weve got to throw
ourselves
onto the, the power and presence of the
Holy
[00:15:18] JimBo Stewart: where I’d call you back to another episode. I had Rick Fisher, who is, the, uh, I think vice president of Blackabee Ministries. And he has a book he wrote with Richard Blackabee called Developing
a
Powerful Praying Church.
And I had him on to talk about some of those aspects. And it’s a short book. It’s an easy read. It’s a good read. You can go back to that episode and you can hear a little bit of that. I’ll link that in the show notes as well. because developing a powerful praying church has to be one of the things
that we
are moving
towards
directionally.
[00:15:48] Brandon Moore: Yeah, So these are
the marks
of foundations. So the foundations are marked, a mature foundations in the life of the church are marked by humility. And that plays out with the gospel of hope in the
gospel,
submission
to
scripture,
and
dependence
on
prayer.
[00:16:01] JimBo Stewart: All right. so
then we go identities and then we go foundations.
And now,
now
the one that
everybody
wants
to
start with
[00:16:08] Brandon Moore: Yeah. They’re the
most
tangible,
right?
I mean, it’s the ones that like, you’ve got actual documents for, and you’ve got like, um, I mean, you’re often experiencing the frustrations of these structures on a, on a daily and weekly basis. So I get why people want to start with them, but it’s, you cannot, you’ve got to start with the humility of like, Look, it’s not about how do I build out these structures?
It’s about relying upon the power and presence of the Lord through
the
gospel,
scripture and
prayer. And then you’ve got to prioritize people, and their development as worshipers, family, and missionaries. And, because this isn’t about like, how do you build this organization of the
church?
It is
about
how
do
you
see
transformed lives
in
your
[00:16:47] JimBo Stewart: So if somebody were, they’re listening to this for the purpose of setting goals in this area, would you encourage
them to
start with
foundations
or
with
identities?
I
would
say
start
with
foundations.
Start with foundations, build that, then go identities.
Strengthen that, make sure that’s headed in the right direction. Once both of those areas are headed in the right direction, now let’s get to structures and let’s
set
some goals and do some
evaluation in
[00:17:14] Brandon Moore: structures. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean, because you start with foundations because it’s the Lord, that’s going to empower the transformation of people, those identities that they’re living out all the time. And so if you try to just jump
straight
to identities or structures you’re doing, like you’re just buying
into
the world’s
way of building an organization.
And
building
a people.
and so
you’ve got
to start with the fuel that the Lord provides, and rely upon that power and then lean into the
priority
that
he
set for
you, which
is
shepherding people. And then you move to structures. And as you’ve had transformation
in
people’s lives, like it really begins to to address structures then is just pull obstacles out of the way and free people up
and for
there just
to
be
more and more
momentum
at that point.
So really structures are there to help maximize what’s already happening. And so if nothing’s happening, like there, it’s a multiplier, you multiply zero or you multiply anything by zero and what do you get? You get zero. Right. And so if you’re trying to deal with structures when nothing’s already
happening, then
like,
you’re
not
going
to
actually
see
anything
multiplied,
like these
structures are gifts from
the
Lord. They are good. Okay. Right.
And
they’re supposed to be
for the good of the church, but, they cannot be a priority. and so once, once you have some momentum that you actually want to fuel, like that’s when you move to these structures and you begin to like primarily it’s, it’s providing pathways within this, as
we mentioned
in that last podcast, you want to think about these as, as not just again, documents, but like pathways you’re providing for people, because
you’re,
you’re
always
thinking
about maturity is
it’s
about.
People,
right?
And so
with these structures though, the primary mark of mature structures in the church is
wisdom.
wisdom. I mean, like love, humility, and wisdom. Like those
are
three of maybe the most common
talked about things
and virtues
in
all
of
scripture. And, and so like, it’s.
it’s.
Right
that the church should be marked by these primary virtues in the life
of the church
But we’re also
really bad at wisdom in our culture and day and age because we’re so information overloaded that like we just want to get down into the weeds of
the
ideals of how things should look.
but we don’t have a lot of wisdom as to like how to practically put
those things
into place. So we will
spend
a lot
of
time talking about, and I can be guilty of this for sure. Talking about like, what’s the ideal leader or what’s
the
ideal
leadership
pipeline
look
like?
But
How
does that actually land in your church? It takes
wisdom.
and that’s context based, but, but scripture, there’s so many books of wisdom and Jesus speaks so much wisdom, that we need to consider how it lands in our context. And so mature structures are marked by wisdom in this way. in the church planting world, particularly, the missional church
planting world
overseas,
there’s a lot of talk of
the idea
of indigenous church planting.
I mean, many of us would
agree
that
the
the best way to do missions is to,
reach
people where they’re at, unreached
people
groups, raise
up
indigenous leaders
so that they then can
better
reach
their own people. Right. and so within that whole movement of, of mission stuff, there are these ideas of, well, what’s it look like to have indigenous churches while
they have
to
be self governed.
self supporting
or self sustaining and self replicating. Um, and there’s some other cells that have been added along the way cause everyone always adds on. Right. But, these ideas go right along with those three key structures in the church. So in the structure of
leadership
that we’re mature, and
wisely self
governing.
All right. And so that means qualified leaders, That means, calling out new leaders, developing new leaders. That means having pathways
to
develop those leaders
and
then
to mobilize those leaders. and
that
means
pastors,
deacons.
As well as other kinds of ministry leaders that don’t do the work of the ministry,
but equip
the saints for
the work
of
the ministry.
Right?
And
so
that’s
what you’re measuring.
Like
is your church set up and wisely self governing obviously under the authority and headship of Christ, but with the leaders, he’s gifted
the
church
and
then the affirmation of
the
congregation.
So
that’s
what
we’re talking
about
when we
talk about wise,
leadership structure is this wise self governance of the church.
Then, we talk about
membership.
All
right.
and
once again, we can get into, in replant mode. Everyone wants to jump into let’s clear the roles. Let’s clean them up. Like let’s get, you know, those people
that haven’t
been here forever. And
that
I’ve
seen it
numerous times
where
that explodes
a church, when you try to take
that on
too early.
So,
this is a piece of that
but
more importantly I think with this is Wise self
sustainment is
what
you’re
looking at
here a wisely self sustaining church Is self sustaining because their members Have clear covenant commitments with one another and
they are
stewarding
their time
talent and
treasure
For
the good of
one another and god’s mission of the church.
And so Like it’s
it’s
helping
to bring clarity to what it means to be a
member
of
the church
to
those that are present.
Just start there.
All right. And then
to
help
them
recognize what
it
means to
steward, their commitment to one another and their, the gifts God’s given them, whether that’s time, talent, or treasure, for his glory and the good of one another within that body.
So you’re, you’re measuring self sustainment because when, when members understand those things and are stewarding those things, well, the church will be self sustaining. You won’t need
partner
churches necessarily to prop the church up at that
point.
And then lastly, with discipleship structure,
we’re talking about
the wisdom
of self
replication, And so, a church that has a healthy, mature discipleship structure is going to have clear pathways for someone that, doesn’t know Jesus, to be,
to
encounter the gospel,
to
then,
place their faith
in Jesus,
to be baptized, to
grow
in their
faith,
to
become a disciple maker themselves, and then maybe one day a leader, but not always, right?
And so got that kind of pathway, and but it’s self replicating when every member of the church knows how they can take
their
own next
step within
that discipleship
structure
And they
know how
to help someone else
take
their next step
within that. That’s
the self
replicating part.
Because when leaders are
doing
the
work
of
the ministry,
you
can
have some
discipleship happening where people are growing and those kinds of things. But wisdom in that discipleship structure is self replication where the members of the church are actively engaged
in.
taking
their
own
next steps
and
helping
others
take
their
own
next
steps
and
following after
Jesus.
[00:23:48] JimBo Stewart: This is so good. Just to summarize, from like a real
large
perspective,
high
perspective.
So,
love, humility, wisdom.
And in that we’re looking all these areas of identities and foundations and structures. So for the purpose of setting goals, if goal one is let’s evaluate and assess where we’re at. We’re measuring maturity, we’re ranking these categories you’ve given us on
a
one to 10, and then we’re asking the follow up question.
Why did I not rank it two points higher, right? And then we’re also trying to add What are two points of evidence that back up the score that I gave right that you know How not just this is what I feel and so if nothing else, this is not a full survey. Maybe we’ll have that one day but right now what we have is you can look at these categories And I think
this is
a great way
to
evaluate sit with some of your
leaders
work through Don’t, you know, you don’t have to do everything.
You can do it all, but like, so let’s start with foundations and then let’s go to identity and then let’s get the structures that help us maximize
what
we’re
doing
with
the
foundations and the
[00:24:57] Brandon Moore: Yeah. And when
you, when you sit
with
some
of
those
leaders,
don’t
be the
first one to talk,
be
okay
with
some
of
the silence
If people
are
like hesitating to speak. Yeah. Yeah. You may want to do this by yourself first. So you think through some of the evidences and you can encourage
some
of
those leaders even because some
of them.
may
be overly optimistic. Some of them may be overly pessimistic and
you may need
to encourage and in that evaluation process.
Like, like I’ve found that churches often and pastors often don’t like to do evaluation,
because,
we
don’t want to be
critical
of
the
church
and it, it’s Jesus
[00:25:32] JimBo Stewart: pride. Well, and it can be,
and it can be scary for us too, right? I mean, if I’m the pastor, there’s a part of me that maybe goes, I don’t know, you start evaluating
this,
you
might determine
I’m not good at my job. and that, I mean, that’s a vulnerable, scary place to be, but I think as long as we are approaching it with love and with
humility
and
with
wisdom,
[00:25:54] Brandon Moore: we’re gonna be okay. Yeah. And part of that love, humility, and
wisdom
is
approaching
this
kind
of
process,
being crazy
encouraging.
Yes. Right? And, and that means like, I mean, you’ve gotta be able to, to point out tangible evidences
of the
good in the
life
of
the
church. Even
if
things are
going
really
poorly
at the
time,
Like,
you’ve
just, you’ve got to be able to see it because like that
church
are there,
like
is there because
there’s still saints
that
are present.
no
matter how immature
they are.
Like Paul calls
the Corinthian
church saints, right? Like even as crazy and messed up
as
that
situation was.
And
so
like
find
a way
to call them
saints
and
to
build them up.
[00:26:34] JimBo Stewart: Yeah, that’s a good word. All right, will you close us in prayer?
[00:26:37] Brandon Moore: Yeah.
Father,
God,
we just
are
so amazed
at
the
way you love us,
the way you’ve sent your son to not just model love, but to pour out his love for us on the cross. Lord,
I pray
that we would
be
a people marked
by
that love.
That we would be reliant, radically dependent upon your power and presence in the gospel, scripture, and prayer that you’ve given to us, God.
That we would be a people that,
rely upon
you
in such
a
way that,
that we have wisdom from you. not from the world, but from you. And Lord, I just pray, that, that our churches would be, ever growing in maturity. that we would be on this direction
for
your
glory
and
the
good
of
others.
And
I
pray
this
in Jesus
name. Amen.
BRANDON MOORE, Calvary Family of Churches, calvarycon, church health, church maturity, church replanting, church revitalization, evaluating church health, goals, ministry goals, setting goals
