Greetings to all who are called to be the saints of
Jesus Christ,

Today we are told that people are living longer than we have in the past. While the life expectancies used to be somewhere around 50 years old in 1900 we were expected to live an average age of 76 years old in 1997. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that the life expectancy has increased to 77.6 years as of 2003.

Many believe that the reason for such an increase in life expectancy is due to the progress in medicine. I don’t think anyone can argue that when we take better care of ourselves we will live a healthier and longer life.

There is a movement in Germany that started in 1996 by Christian A. Schwarz called the Natural Church Development. Since then, there has been more than 40,000 churches in 70 countries that experienced healthy church growth.

The principle behind the movement is simple, begin to address the illnesses or weaknesses of the church ministry to become a healthier church. There are eight quality characteristics that Schwarz believes are needed for the church to become healthy. They are: Empowering Leadership, Gift-Oriented Ministry, Passionate Spirituality, Functional Structures, Inspiring Worship Service, Holistic Small Groups, Need-Oriented Evangelism, and Loving Relationship.

There is a proverb in Korea: A monk can not cut his own hair. I believe this is true for our church as well. While we are blessed by presence of many kind and wonderful people we can easily overlook our growing edges when we do not take time to re-examine ourselves. One key for a successful athlete is to constantly seek out the growing edge. Only then can an athlete improve him or herself.

It is my hope that for next eight weeks we will explore these characteristics and discover the growing edges that may bring the ministry of the church into a new level of growth.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Christine