3 Aspects of Church Health

Peter Wagner once said there are three factors which influence a church’s growth and health:
1. Institutional (ex: adequate parking, budget priorities, right leaders in right places)
2. Contextual (connecting with your community’s culture, who you are reaching)
3. Spiritual (ex: obedience, prayer, spiritual forces in community)
Giving attention to all three is necessary. However, we each have a tendency toward one; that is, we will tend to look at the ministry through that one lens alone. This will produce some distorted images of our church and frustrating ministry attempts because an institutional bottleneck can’t be solved by a spiritual answer, and a spiritual problem can’t be solved with an institutional answer.  Which do you tend toward first?
It occurs to me that a similar approach to our individual health and growth. If  a guy is spending more than he makes, he might pray that God will provide and that debt will go away, but he needs to rip up the credit cards and make a budget. On the other hand, if a woman’s selfishness is ruining her marriage, it is fine to get counseling, but it is not going to help much until she asks God to change he heart and teach her to love.
Choosing the right answer requires understanding the question.