Is Your Church Healthy?

Another look at the "Self" Tests ...

Over 150 years ago Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson first articulated what has come to be referred to as the Three-Self Formula. They wrote that a new church, mission plant or existing church could be considered mature or indigenous when it reached the point that the following stages had been achieved: (Reese, Robert. "The Surprising Relevance of the Three-Self Formula". Mission Frontiers, July-August 2007. p 25-27)

• Self-Governing: An indigenous leadership has been recruited and trained to provide local leadership to the polity of the congregation.
• Self-Propagating: The indigenous church body assumes responsibility for outreach and evangelism and insures generational viability.
• Self-Supporting: The church body, through its tithes and offerings, is able to provide for its own ministry, facilities, and ministry staff.

Robert Reese, in his article entitled "The Surprising Relevance of the Three-Self Formula", believes that these three tests are still relevant today. He writes,

"... the formula, whatever may be its shortcomings and blind spots, remains the criterion in missions for a church or Christian organization that is not dependent. A Three-Self body of Christians has enough strength and responsibility to work for Christ whether others are available to help or not. ... why should anyone desire that bodies of believers in various parts of the world not become self-governing, self-propagating, and self-supporting, when this is exactly what it will take to complete the task of world evangelization?" (Ibid. p. 27)

Two additions have been proposed to the Three-Self Formula by more recent writers and should be considered with the other tests as appropriate in determining church health. They are:

• Self-Theologizing: Paul Heibert defined this fourth self "... as the ability of an indigenous church to read and interpret Scripture within its local culture." (Ibid. p. 26)
• Self-Reproducing: David Garrison suggests that a congregation has not reached maturity until it is reproducing itself. This means planting additional churches which then plant churches becoming a church planting movement. (Garrison, David. Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World. (2004). P. 22-23. Midlothian, Virginia, USA: Wigtake Resources)

Is your church healthy?

May God be Glorified in His Church! 

R. Paige Mathews

303.378.5363

pmathews@missionaryinstitute.org